The Frisian Solar Challenge for boats

The rigours of having a five man team having to lift a boat out of the water, carry it a distance and safely launch it again absolutely ensures that boats will be practical and robust.

Just one example of the boats planned for launch on June 22 is the creation from a team from Vripack.

Vripack® designs and builds interiors and exteriors of luxury yachts, and indeed makes kits for a wide range of boats which are manufactured in boatyards around the world. Vripak’s entry into the Frisian Solar Challenge is significant for the industry because the company is clearly exploring alternative propulsion by use of Solar Panels, which it can implement globally very readily. Accordingly, much of the interest surrounding Vripak’s state-of-the-art research and development project for the 2008 Frisian Solar Challenge is centred on the team’s futuristic Solar Boat.

The aim of the project is to design and construct an ultra light boat that is strong enough to endure the rigours of the long distance race, and fast enough to win. The single-person boat is propelled by a two blade propeller placed on an innovative pod coupled to an all electric motor. Power comes from five solar panels and the tiny black carbon and fibreglass beauty can achieve a speed of 11 knots at full stretch – if it can achieve an 11 knot average (20.372 km/h), it will be well ahead of the time-frame required by the skaters to achieve such improvements (32 years) .

The mixed composite hull construction of the Vripak boat keeps costs down and uses the lighter carbon at key points to make the boat as light as possible. With an overall length of 6 meters and a 2 meter beam, the boat will need to be manually lifted out of the water and transported over obstacles such as dikes. For this purpose a quick release has been designed to dismantle the solar panels. The solar boat of the future could well be evolving before our eyes and it may well make its first appearance in the Frisian Solar Challenge 2008.

Vripak began in 1961, combining the design and sale of yachts in a single dedicated company, initially creating smaller motor, sailing and flat-bottomed yachts. The company was responsible for a number of trail-blazing designs, most notably its evolving range of Doggersbank motoryachts which began in 1968 at a modest 10.8 metres, by 1971 had grown to 15-metres, with a 19-metre version appearing in 1973 and a 24-metre model a year later. Over the decades since, more than 500 Doggersbank yachts have been built in a multitude of different versions.

The following borrows heavily from Dick Boon’s history of his own company.

In the spring of 1987, the risks involved in complete yacht builds had become prohibitively high and Vripak closed down its sales office and concentrated on its core business of yacht design, with three highly knowledgable, very experienced people. The enormous in-house experience accrued by Vripack through over two decades of project management meant the company was uniquely proficient in the countless aspects involved in the design of a yacht. With new technology to hand, this expertise found an exceptionally efficient application by distributing its expertise using computer technology.

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