Wind powers quest for hybrid boats

SMART SAILING: Miguel Angel Gomez Solaetxe (left), Mikel Lejarza Bilbao, Juan Luis Larrabe Barrena and Jose Ignacio Uriarte Aretxabala are using the Saltillo to test their findings. Photo / Supplied.

A Spanish team is pushing ahead with their goal to turn the wind in a yacht's sails into electric energy.

There appears to be no way of escaping the relentless push to ever greener methods of propulsion.

Hybrid boats, it seems, may soon be as common as such cars and a solar-powered motor boat is now just months away from attempting to circumnavigate the world.

As in the quest to find new ways to warm and light our homes, scientists with an interest in things marine are now looking for other ways to power our boats, too.

The latest, and perhaps most interesting to date, comes from the Higher Nautical and Naval Engineering Technical School in the Basque area of Spain.

There, lecturers Mikel Lejarza, Jose Ignacio Uriarte, Miguel Angel Gomez Solaetxe and Juan Luis Larrabe are working on an exceptionally innovative project.

They are trying to create a sail boat that is able to manoeuvre at low speeds using electric energy obtained from the movement of the wind in its sails.

In other words, they want to create a vessel that can generate electricity from wind movement. According to Larrabe, the energy from the wind is gathered in the sails and the propeller operates as a turbine.

The turbine is then connected to an electric generator, which charges electric batteries.

"When you want to propel the vessel and there is no wind you can use this stored energy while avoiding using the internal combustion engine," he says.

The team says the stored energy would be used primarily to moor the yacht or manoeuvre it away from its mooring to an area where its sails can be raised.

They are therefore planning a hybrid system in which both the electrical and diesel engines can be used, depending on how far one wants to travel and the state of the batteries.

As Larrabe points out, making the vessel exclusively electrical would require an unreasonable number of batteries.

"You still have to have the traditional engines on board, but the idea is to use them as little as possible."

The lecturers plan to install their prototype equipment on board the 24m Saltillo, an 80-tonne vessel belonging to the University of the Basque Country that is based in the port of Santurtzi.

The team, which began work on the project almost two years ago, has now completed their theoretical study and is about to start their on-water testing.

All aspects of the Saltillo were "characterised from a mathematical perspective" to create a preliminary design.

"In other words, we calculated what the various elements taking part in the hybridisation of the boat should be - the hull, the propeller, the hull-propeller interaction, the electrical/electronic machinery and the internal combustion engine," says Larrabe.

"We then put all this data together to carry out simulations with different strategies of hybridisation to find out which of these might be the most efficient, from a theoretical perspective, for this vessel."

They also designed a navigation course to be used during the practical stages of the project.

The next step is to draw up an "energy audit".

"We have to see what the fuel emissions and consumption are for the Saltillo with the diesel propulsion it currently runs on."

The team will also check these against the standardised navigational course they have created.

Finally, if they can secure the necessary funding, the team will trial various prototypes against the Saltillo's original energy audit and report their findings. Larrabe says he and his fellow researchers are confident their new system will prove worthwhile.

He says that as well as the obvious ecological and economic benefits (lower emissions and fuel savings), there will be safety benefits, too.

"We will have energy stored in different ways; in batteries and also, as has been done traditionally, with fossil fuel."

If either the electrical or the diesel system should fail the other would be there as a back up.

It is, of course, far too early to tell whether the system will work at all and, if it does, whether it can be produced and installed economically. Nevertheless, it is another sign that serious planning is now underway for a marine world powered by something other than petrol or diesel.

- NZ Herald