PlanetSolar World Tour 2011

The world's largest solar boat has been unveiled this week at the Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel in Germany. PlanetSolar, a 31m long, 15m wide and 60 ton catamaran has been designed to reach a top speed of around 15 knots, and can hold up to 50 passengers.

Power entirely by up to 500 square metres of photovoltaic solar panels composed by 38,000 photovoltaic cells which have an efficiency of at least 22%.

The boat has been designed for a global circumnavigation planned for 2011.

This extraordinary technological but also human challenge is driven by Swiss skipper Raphaël Domjan and French skipper Gérard d'Aboville, the first person to successfully row across the Atlantic Ocean in 1980.

The project will help to motivate engineers and scientists to develop innovative technologies, inspire people around the world, and show that the impossible can become possible.

Links :

• other electric powered trimaran project : Solar Magister
  

How to save your navigation plan (gpx export)

Following the post 'How to prepare your navigation plan', you want now to export the created waypoints and routes on some usb memory stick.

To export the file, just click on the 'Save the gpx file' button at the bottom right corner of the map :
Then click on the 'export' in the window which appears on the screen :

and confirm your save :


Then go the the Downloads folder of your PC or Mac to locate the file :

data.geogarage.gpx

and if necessary, save it in a usb memory stick

Notes :

• this 'data.geogarage.gpx' file is in gpx format and usable by most of the navigation software of the market
  
• this file as an xml file is editable by any text editor : example
  
  

Sail and surf

East Coast of Australia, July 2009 :

Saltonay, a 43-foot catamaran from Sydney skippered by Ian Sloan went to Goldcoast marinas, large urban area south of Brisbane.
-> see place on Marine GeoGarage

Following a gale, the waves in the harbor entrance (called Southport Seaway) were about 2 meters high!
After a night of waiting, the skipper and 2 crew decided to go ...

How to prepare your navigation plan

In the GeoGarage tools (at the top left corner of the map), select :

• the flag logo in order to create waypoints on the map
• the broken line in order to create routes

Then click on the map :

• to create some waypoints : the Edit window proposes you to enter the name of the waypoint
  

• to create some route :
  

Notes :

• don't forget to click twice to end the creation of the route
• the Edit window proposes you to enter the name of the route (by default 'route#1' : you can rename it selecting 'route#1' and entering a new name with the keyboard)
  

• you can also change the color of the line clicking on the blue square
• the total length of the route is displayed (ex.: 311 Nm) : the route also shows the cumulative distance from the start for each waypoint and the bearing between each waypoint
  
• and you can of course choose to delete the whole route
• you can also choose to edit some of the waypoints belonging to the route, to delete it or to move it with the mouse (releasing the button of the mouse when the new position of the waypoint is correct)
  

Then when your navigation plan is ready, click on the 'reload button' to see all your data :

In our example, we have now 1 route and 1 waypoint.
If you have several waypoints or several routes, the Edition window displays all the list :

To select a specific waypoint or route :

• click on the name in the 'Edition' window
• or click on the object directly on the map

Xynthia, back to the future

Movie of wind forecast from grib.us (HiRes GRIB model)

As forecasting models improve, forecasters are able to issue more accurate and timely storm warnings and advisories.

Ex.: Weather forecast from wunderground.com,

February 26, 2010 (2 days before the passage)

"A large 1000 mb low pressure system named "Xynthia" is over the eastern Atlantic, and is expected to rapidly intensify Saturday morning into a meteorological 'bomb' that will bring high winds and flooding rains to Portugal, northern Spain, and western France. The models are coming into better agreement now, and have shifted their position for the storm's maximum intensity eastwards. France is now in the bullseye, and the storm is predicted to be at maximum intensity on Sunday morning when it will be positioned over northwestern France. The storm's powerful cold front will sweep ashore south of the low, bringing sustained winds of 50 - 60 mph (80 - 95 km/hr) to the coast of France's Bay of Biscay, with gusts over hurricane force (120 km/hr). The central pressure at that time will range from 966 mb to 972 mb, according to two of our top computer models, the ECMWF and GFS."