Six-year journey for self-fuelling boat

A self-fuelling boat is travelling around the world from Paris for six years.

The Energy Observer is using solar panels, wind turbines and a hydrogen fuel cell system during its search for innovative solutions helping the environment.

Designed as a media platform to that end, the boat’s occupants will meet people who are designing tomorrow’s future, and to prove that a cleaner world is possible, the Energy Observer website says.

The NZ$7.8 million boat left Port Du Gros Caillou with Paris mayor and C40 Cities network president Anne Hidalgo on board. It plans to visit 50 countries, with 101 stopovers. The Energy Observer will call at world heritage sites, international boat and trade shows, threatened locations and more

The 30.5-metre boat relies on sun or wind during the day, and at night draws on hydrogen produced from electrolysis of sea water.

Designed in 1983, the Energy Observer was originally built as a racing catamaran and a world record holder in open-sea sailing races, including one stint as the ENZA New Zealand under Sir Peter Blake and British sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, winning the Jules Verne Trophy in 1994.

Skippers Frederic Dahirel and Victorien Erussard and a French research institute have converted it into the Energy Observer project with autonomous navigation.

“We are bringing, around our project, the knowledge from companies, laboratories, start-ups, and institutions together,” Erussard says.

The next stopover is at Boulogne-sur-mer from July 22-30.