Monday, July 6, 2009

Green Dreamboats - A Rising Tide of Hybrid and Solar-Powered Boats

Green Dreamboats: A Rising Tide of Hybrid and Solar-Powered Boats
By Don Wallace Link to full article below

Until recently, boating was one of the least green things one could do. Powerboats guzzle fuel at a rate that makes a HUMMER look like a teetotaler. (We’re talking gallons per minute, not per mile.) As for sailboats, call them yachting’s dirty little secret: They all need smoky, leaky engines and generators to power their increasing amenities: lighting, refrigerators, stoves, air-conditioning, TVs, hot tubs.

And so began the Great Tinkering. All through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, boats sprouted windmills, solar panels, solar-heated showers and underwater electricity-generating propellers.

In the late 1990s a French company, Lagoon, outfitted a sailing catamaran with electric motors to give vacation renters a noiseless option for inshore cruising.

To read the full article: http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4740

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