Wave Powered Boat to Sail From Hawaii to Japan

CaroKann writes "In the middle of May 2008, Kenichi Horie, an adventurer known for such feats as paddling a pedal powered boat 4,660 miles from Hawaii to Okinawa in 1993, will be sailing a wave powered boat from Honolulu's Hawaii Yacht Club to the Kii Channel in Japan. The boat, a 3-ton catamaran named the Suntory Mermaid II, works by virtue of the fins located at the front of the boat. These fins "generate thrust force by moving up and down like the tails of dolphins and whales and absorbing the energy of the waves." The system can propel the boat no matter which direction the waves come from. Because the wave propulsion system absorbs the energy from the waves, a passenger on the boat will experience a smooth ride. With a top speed of about 5 knots, the journey is expected to take about 2 to 3 months."

Future journey times.

[owlnation (858981)]

the journey is expected to take about 2 to 3 months

Probably still faster than getting through airport check-in and security.

Re:

[neuromancer23 (1122449)]

Also, regaining your land legs is easier from sea legs than it is from cavity search legs.

Says it'll also have solar power

[garett_spencley (193892)]

"A set of eight solar panels produces 560 watts to run the navigation lights, ham radio, satellite phone and PC."

If he's going to have a PC on board I wonder if he'll have Internet hookup via the Satellite phone. And if so if he'll be posting a blog to detail his journey. That would be pretty sweet.

Does anyone know if he has a personal web site regarding his voyage ? TFA doesn't mention one.

Re:Says it'll also have solar power

[The_Wilschon (782534)]

A blog of the voayge! That does sound really exciting! I can almost see it now...

Captain's log, seadate 52145.7: There are lots of waves out here. There is also lots of water. The boat keeps going forward.

Captain's log, seadate 52271.2: More waves. Also more water. Still on the boat.

Captain's log, seadate 52361.9: Saw a fish this morning. Most exciting thing all week. It had fins. Also a tail.

Interesting way of transportation

[Daimanta (1140543)]

I am intrigued by transport using the power of nature. I myself am working on moving a ship by "catching" the wind with a large upright "surface" altough I don't exactly know how I am going to contruct this "surface". I was personally thinking about using a soft fabric and bind it to a pole. I am also testing if multiple surfaces work better than one.

I'll keep you informed if I continue to the next fases of my daring contruction plan.

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[kestasjk (933987)]

I was thinking about somehow exploiting the explosive chemical energy in our gasoline reserves, but I'm totally stumped on how to convert an explosive expansion of gas into torque..

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[Daimanta (1140543)]

This sounds very interesting. I highly suggest putting fixed cannons on the back of your transportation vehicle and firing them in a steady interval. Any other way way would be pure insanity!

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[fuzznutz (789413)]

This sounds very interesting. I highly suggest putting fixed cannons on the back of your transportation vehicle and firing them in a steady interval. Any other way way would be pure insanity!

My God, Mr. Scott. You've invented impulse engines. Now get started on that warp drive.

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[bartappleous (1247854)]

Insanity... I'm thinking dolphin tow rope, and fish launchers. You see you launch the fish out ahead of the dolphins and that's how you steer the boat. Oh and it can easily scale up too! Think Blue Whale tow and krill launcher. I'm not twelve. Really. I think it would be fun, but PETA would be all over me on that one. But the Blue Whale Loves pulling the boat.

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[bartappleous (1247854)]

Great white and or Orca tow plus sea lion pup launcher. Now I am done for.

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[bartappleous (1247854)]

Olympic swimmer tow and gold medal launcher. You can even use steroids to improve performance.

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[by Anonymous Coward]

Cuban refuge tow, but it only works if you are going to Miami.

Re:Interesting way of transportation

[elrous0 (869638)]

Aye, but you shall need many a good man to tend to such a ship, good sir. We shall need a method of obtaining such men in an unscrupulous manner. Perhaps, with the aid of a local grog establishment we can deceive these men into drinking themselves into a stupor, then kidnapping them into the service. But we shall need a city to function of as our base of operations. Perhaps somewhere in the Orient.

Let's do the math

[Ancient_Hacker (751168)]

let's try to calculate how man horsepower you can get from this scheme.

• Let's assume they have a 550 pound float at the end of a xx-foot beam.
• And assume there's a three-foot wave going by every five seconds.
• You probably don't wnt to be out in a 3-ton catamaran in much bigger waves that that.
• And assume you have some differential flotation going on so there's three feet of motion between the float and the boat.
• So you have 550 pounds moving 3/5 of a foot per second.
• That's a not very whopping 0.6 horsepower.
• Just about enough to move the float at a knot or two through the water.
• Of course it would be easier to just cut loose the float.

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[doooooosh (1124823)]

Well, for one, the according to this [seafriends.org.nz], the average wave height between Hawaii and Japan is closer to 10 feet, with a period of ~7.5 seconds. I doubt there's 10 feet of motion available in the fin of the boat, but it starts to account for the larger amount of energy available, and the higher speeds claimed. I'm far from a an expert in anything, really, so I'll leave it to someone else to make a better guess at the math.

Re:Let's do the math

[Deadstick (535032)]

There's some confusion here about how the system works...it's not floats and beams.

The effect that makes it possible is that the vertical motion of water under waves progressively decreases with increasing depth. The vanes are supported by two streamlined struts that stick down several feet below the boat. As the boat rises on the front side of a wave, the bottom of the strut assembly moves up at the same rate as the boat, but the water at that depth is not rising as fast. Therefore, the vanes attached to the struts are being dragged upward relative to the water around them.

The vanes are hinged forward of center, so as they're dragged up they rotate to an upward slant until they hit a stop; then they act as a kind of propeller blade, generating a net forward force. As the boat goes down the backside of the wave, they rotate to a downward slant and again you get a forward force.

I built a model of one of these as a kid...worked remarkably well.

rj

Smuggler's dream

[gregor-e (136142)]

I can see modified craft like this becoming automated, slow mules for smugglers. Since there is no need for a sail, they can ride low, leaving almost no visible, radar or sonar signature. Just put a generator and some electronics for navigation, and you've got a virtually undetectable smuggle-bot.

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[spectrokid (660550)]

Yeah, and when the Godfather asks when his next shipment of snow is due, you answer: "somewhere between 2 and 3 months from now, just keep on checking that beach, man!".

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[superwiz (655733)]

Or worse, yet, it's a dream for outsourcers. Scaling this would allow to move natural resources around the planet at virtually no cost. So the dream of high-paying heavy industry jobs would be gone. Worse? Better? Depends on your politics, I guess. Neil Stephenson actually figured it would be the balloons that would do the trick. Maybe at some point they will.

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[superwiz (655733)]

Again, if a steady stream is established, it would be a one time delay. Just picture one ship taking off every week and one arriving every week. It would be an essentially self-propelled pipeline. Only the initial delivery would be 6 months from the initial arrival. Ie, this pipe would have high bandwidth but also a high latency. Spare the "tube" jokes, please (been done). As for reliability, if there is money to be made in making these things reliable, they will be made reliable. The only reason tha

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[SirMeliot (864836)]

This somewhat similar device should suit your coke smuggling requirements. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7234544.stm [bbc.co.uk]

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[Calinous (985536)]

Sonar signature? Check, as close to nothing as possible (you might still have transients if the moving equipment starts to squeak).
Radar signature? If you make it entirely from plastics (or at least the hull), you could get that
Heat signature? The surface of the boat will heat/cool faster than the surrounding water. But if you put a generator on it, there will probably be a heat signature.

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[Calinous (985536)]

The only chance for radar detection would come from an overhead radar - the visible horizon for something as low in the water (the area where it could be detected too) is no larger than a few miles.
      And surveillance, airborne radar probably are much better than the big ship mounted counterparts - yet, they might not suffice.

versus fossil fuels

[Kohath (38547)]

the journey is expected to take about 2 to 3 months

Wow, that's pretty good. How long does it take in a boat powered by fossil fuels?

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[Don853 (978535)]

Probably two to three times that fast for a typical cargo ship.

The SS United States was the fastest, or one of the fastest, non-nuclear ships and could sustain 35 knots on fossil fuels but is currently gathering rust in South Philly.

Between Smart And Genius? Orders of Magnitude

[curmudgeon99 (1040054)]

This is just a brilliant idea! The boat is propelled no matter the direction of the waves, and the side effect being that the boat is mostly insulated from the wave motion? How f'n brillian is that! As I have always said, the "difference between Smart and Genius is not just a few iffy percentage points, it's orders of magnitude.

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[TheRaven64 (641858)]

It's a shame that kind of thing has never been commercially exploited. At 70 miles per hour, you could get across the Atlantic in two days. Not fast enough for business travel, but I wouldn't mind a relaxing two day sea voyage as an alternative to 7 hours on a plane. Given some bandwidth and a reasonably comfortable cabin I could work en route.

waving

[bandersnatch (176074)]

When he leaves, he always waves goodbye

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[kitsunewarlock (971818)]

When he leaves, he always waves goodbye

Or does he wave "aloha"?

That would double the meaning...but does it double the amount? Will he go 2 times faster? If he paints it red will it go 3 times faster?

These are just the kinds of things real daredevils and, dare I say, geniuses (tm) of our day and age experiment with.

That and lightening bolt stickers. Which frankly, I'm too afraid of experimenting with on my own vehicles, lest I break free from the earth's gravitational pull and hit the sun.

Maybe if I go at night...

Also called...

[Thanshin (1188877)]

Water powered boat? It's a surfboard!

Ok, a multi-directional surfboard.

Propulsion for artificial islands

[Phoenix666 (184391)]

I saw something on the Discovery Channel a long time ago where Ballard proposed artificial islands. Wave-propulsion would be an ideal way to move the beasts around.

Interesting facts about boats and cruisers

[mclearn (86140)]

At 3 tons, this boat is very light. A 3 ton boat can be flipped very easily by a rough wave. Coupled with the fact that this is a catamaran, you have a boat that is equally as stable upside down as it is righted. Our boat is 12 tons without food and equipment (we have about 1.5 tons of spare parts and tools alone!) -- 8 tons of this is keel weight. It cannot flip over and stay upside down (unless the keel breaks off).

As for the stmt that says it will absorb the energy of the wave making for a smooth ride: don't believe it. That's like saying your knees can absorb the energy of your uneven surface. If there is more energy than can be absorbed, you will experience a rough time standing up. Same thing applies here. Do you know how much energy is in a wave? Think about the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2005. Think about wave-absorbing power plants. The amplitude of the wave doesn't even matter: it's a combination of amp. and freq. I've been in waves that are 60 feet tall, but they're 500 feet apart. This makes for a smooth, duck-like, enjoyable, infinity view when you crest, and a rather enclosing feel when you trough. :-)

Interesting facts: 5 knots is quite slow, but manageable. A knot is about 1.8 km/hour, so we're talking about 9 km/h which is actually slower than a human can run. Captain Cook sailed around the world at about 2.5 knots. He literally went around at walking speed.

As an aside, you can always tell the difference between the cruiser boat and the bay-sailer simply by the sheer amount of shit attached to every surface. :-) Also, look at the size and number of anchors. If there are two or more anchors: cruiser. If the anchor looks like it should be grounding the USS Enterprise: cruiser.

Does anyone else remember Gausefin?

[jamrock (863246)]

I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science back in the mid to late seventies about an experimental wave-powered boat named "Gausefin". What stuck with me all these years was how cool the craft looked. It was a sleek monohull with a low deckhouse, not a catamaran like Suntory Mermaid II. Imagine the dream-like shape of a sailing yacht, but without the masts or sails. The fins that drove the vessel were flexible, and were the only moving parts of the propulsion system; there were no hinges or springs.

Does anyone else remember the Gausefin, or have any information about what happened to this craft? I haven't even been able to find it with Google, and I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined the whole thing.

Call Greenpeace

[StikyPad (445176)]

Great, but what happens when we use up all the waves?!? This is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.

Re:Wave powered boat

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

You're missing

• Sails aren't that good if the wind is against you, you have to tack whereas wave power works in all directions
• This is a prototype, sails have had millennia to develop. Presumably efficency will increase
• Whilst 'flat calm' does exist, waves are more prevalent than wind, less idle time

Re:Wave powered boat

[MMC Monster (602931)]

Don't forget:

• Hybrid wave/wind powered options are possible.

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[Deadstick (535032)]

Indeed. Even ancient Greek and Roman triremes had hybrid propulsion: they actually covered more mileage under sail than rowing, but the oars were there when needed.

rj

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[sckeener (137243)]

This is a prototype, sails have had millennia to develop. Presumably efficency will increase

that and this tech is less manpower intensive than sails.

I could see robots doing this in the future. If the ship has trouble (or is attacked), it could take pictures/video powered by solar panels and beam them via satellite for rescue or Interpol.

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[Loke the Dog (1054294)]

Sails could also be controlled by robots and computers if there was a demand for economical sailing. The problem with sails is that they're not dependable enough, if there's no wind, you're not moving. This is also true for this wave riding boat. It could be a good way to reduce fuel consumption, but it can never out right compete with screws on frieght ships.

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[JCSoRocks (1142053)]

Natalie Portscan!? Is that the one with the sweet interface and the nice rack?

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[daem0n1x (748565)]

You are wrong [wikipedia.org].

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[EasyTarget (43516)]

One word: redundancy.

Re:Wave powered boat

[by Anonymous Coward]

Nah. I have hands. In fact, I have two hands. There's redundancy for you.

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[Gerzel (240421)]

Same reason the first steamships had masts.

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[Calinous (985536)]

There is a big mast that could be very well be used for sails - yet, the idea is to only use wave power.
      I wonder how this wave power will scale up...

Re:Wave powered boat

[srussia (884021)]

That's not sailing; it's just drifting with style!

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[necro81 (917438)]

From the project's website [tsuneishi.co.jp]:

Under normal use the sole power source is wave energy, but the boat can also use sails or an outboard motor when entering or leaving harbor, or in case of emergencies. While cruising, the outboard motor and sails will not be used.

Re:Gold Medal

[piemcfly (1232770)]

Market possibilities? This is the same guy that sailed across the pacific ocean on a boat made from recycled beer kegs.
Isn't it an enormous feat already that somebody comes up with this idea and makes it work?
It might be marketeable in the future... just like almost every innovative technology. Right now it's a feat to marvel at though.

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[blind biker (1066130)]

Isn't it an enormous feat already that somebody comes up with this idea and makes it work?

Absolutely. I think this initiative is amazing, as well as the tech behind the propulsion of this catamaran.

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[MemoryAid (675811)]

Market possibilities? This is the same guy that sailed across the pacific ocean on a boat made from recycled beer kegs.

The guy's a genius; beer kegs have already saturated the market for bulk beer sales. All he has to do is make a boat out of it and it sells!