Sunny days ahead for the TU Delft Solar Boat team

We at Victron have recently extended our sponsorship to include a hard-working team of young scientists who are building a solar-powered hydrofoil. In addition to the annual Dutch solar boat race at Akkrum, they’ve set themselves some exciting goals for 2019 – let’s meet the team.

We asked Redmer Aarnink – who acts as Exposure Manager for the team – to tell us about the project and their 2019 schedule:

The TU Delft Solar Boat Team was founded by students from the TU Delft to train engineers by working on a highly innovative and professional project. We also want to raise awareness of sustainability in the Maritime sector.

Since the inception of the project in 2005 there has been a new team almost every year who have designed, built and participated in a number of international competitions for Solar Boats using their own project-built craft. The 28 student members of the 2019 team began work last August and have so far created a unique design and begun production of the first ever offshore Solar Boat in the team’s history.

We will be the first Dutch- and the first student-team ever to participate in the Monaco Offshore challenge. This means that we will have to sail 93 km on the open seas, from Monaco to Cannes and back. Our boat will also be the first ever solar-powered, foiling trimaran.

Most of the team work full-time on this project which runs from the calendar year August 2018 until August 2019.

We have two main goals this year. In addition to our participation in the world championship for Solar Boats in Monaco, which takes place at the beginning of July, we will also attempt to set a world record, the following month, by being the fastest solar boat ever to cross the English Channel.

We at Victron Energy wish the team every success in their ambitious plans and look forward to bringing you news as it happens – particularly the exciting launch day which is planned for mid May! Here it is at the design stage.

You can follow the team’s progress – through designing, production and racing their offshore solar boat – on social media!

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This TU Delft video shows the standard of achievement to which previous teams have attained:

Thank you to TU Delft for providing all visuals which are reproduced with their permission.

Justin Tyers