Wave power alone will be used to propel a revolutionary boat on a 3,700-mile ocean voyage.
Wave power alone will be used to propel a revolutionary boat on a 3,700-mile ocean voyage. Suntory Mermaid II will set out from Hawaii in May, and its maiden voyage to the Kii Channel in Japan is expected to take about two and a half months.
Solo sailor Kenichi Horie, the boat’s skipper, co-operated with Hiroshi Terao from Tokai University in designing the craft to prove the viability of wave energy as motive power. The 9.5m long catamaran was built by Tsuneishi Shipbuilding and carries an outboard motor for manoeuvring in harbour.
