The question of what power has been raised recently, petrol, diesel.
electric, the latter brings into question from what source, IC.generators,
cover the boat with photo electric cells, the latter could form part of the
construction, then there are fuel cells these are well on their way and I
believe attain 80% efficiency compared with IC. which run at anything from
20% to say 35%, new developments regard photo electric and maybe a bit of
hype say they can start producing cells that are 30% efficient then 25%
would be good.
Electric powering must be efficient and practical, so the present lead
batteries are a bit of a problem, the weight to power ratio and the means to
recharge the batteries, yes weight in a yacht can be put to advantage if
incorporated into the design.
New battery idea's are on stream, the present batteries in use now like Ni
cads excetra present a short vulnerable life span and are expensive for the
small storage they give, though very light, the newer batteries may well
be based on capacitive type storage these will be light and need no
maintenance, these are already in use for smoothing out the grid supplies.
Flexible photoelectric cells could be a reality soon, their working on it,
so we could be using real solar sails generating
electricity for a range of items like fridge, microwave and power the
electric motor to saildrive the boat.