One of the highlights of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi was the arrival of the Tûranor, a solar powered yacht designed and built by Planet Solar. It is the largest boat of its kind afloat and the first vessel ever to circumnavigate the globe powered entirely by direct power from the sun. The vessel, technically a yacht, is a 95 tonne catamaran wih 537 square metres of solar panels on deck. It has no sails and although there is a back up diesel engine for emergencies (and to satisfy insurance conditions) this was never called upon during the entire voyage. It cruises at an average speed of five knots, but is capable of reaching more than double that on sunny days in calm waters.

The project was conceived by Raphaël Domjan as a way of demonstrating the possibilities that current solar technology holds for clean transportation. The yacht carries a huge rack of Lithium Ion batteries capable of storing up to three days of sailing power, enough to allow transit to continue throughout the night, or during overcast skies.

At a price of USD 20 million the boat will probably not be available for anything other than luxury cruisers, but one useful technology that could be put into the general market is the software created by Planet Solar which uses weather data to steer the boat into the sunniest areas, a very useful tool for future solar transport. The year-long trip trip also demonstrated that neither the solar panels nor batteries suffered significant wear from salt or water, another important discovery for future solar powered boats.

a leisurely 14-kilometre-per-hour clip.

Traversing the South China Sea during the typhoon season proved a challenge. Persistent rains forced the catamaran to turn back after its first attempt from Manila to Hong Kong. Its arrival marks the first successful crossing of the sea by a solar boat.