Purchasing your own never-pay-for-fuel-low-maintenance sustainable vessel

Under construction

New, 100% solar boat for inland waterways! Be off-grid in a truly sustainable way!

Order a solar powered boat designed to your wishes or buy a basic standard version (for inland waterways) that can be extended later on without any hassle! (also seagoing versions are possible)

Ok, don 't shoot me for my poor sketch-up abilities, but here is a sketch of what you would buy for €75.000.

Description of the basic standard version:

1. Hulls:
2. 22 PE components, each component a closed element in itself, making it very very unlikely to sink the boat. PE is a recyclable plastic that doesn 't degrade when used again, chemically non-reactive to most substances like for example oils, salt water and so on. This means the components can be fitted out for storage of fluids or non fluids, inlcuding foods and drinks.
3. PE is also very rugged, meaning you can "beach" the boat without fear of rocks or glass (simply back up to continue cruising!)
4. Structure:
5. A modular lightweight extremely strong chassis (made in aluminum), outfitted with a high tech deck in a material engineered at a Belgian university. The material is now known under it' s brand name Monopan.
6. Propulsion and on-board electricity:
7. propulsion is done with electric engines. These engines get their juice from a custom made Lithium-accu. This accu is charged with the on board solar panels. There is standard 220V available throughout the boat. The steering position can be chosen by the customer.

What does all this mean?

Because of the modularly designed system, it can be put together anywhere in the world that DHL can deliver a package. The vessel comes assembled but can also be bought as a kit. The whole kit can easily be stored in a standard shipping container. It takes about 24 hours with two persons to assemble and there are no powertools needed, it all snaps together like lego, therefore it can be assembled in very remote areas.

Because of it 's modular design, it is easy to add an extension later on should for example kids come into play.The modular design also allows you to keep travelling even if somehow you broke something like a hull element or any other element. Simply give an adress like the next port where a replacement will be waiting for you and snap it into place on the spot.All elements can be transported by a regular trailer for a car: the hull components are cumbersome (up to 165x75x75 cm and about 40kg) but manageable by two persons without the need for special equipment. The longest skeletal elements are beams about 2.5m long but weighing only 13.5 kg a piece.

The longest 2 pieces that need to be transported are 448 cm (by 80cm) but are extremely light.

The deck itself is strong enough to drive a car on it and the boat has a loading capacity of over 5 tons.

You will be generating your own power in a sustainable way. In real world conditions this will make it possible to drive the boat all day long at a cruising speed of 6 km/h even in bad weather. I wish to remind people here that in most canals the maximum speed is 8 km/h. The top speed of the boat is north of 12km/h. The accu stores enough energy to keep going through the night at 5 km/h. When the boat is driven at cruising speed, there is no wake so nesting birds on the shore will not be disrupted.

Length: 1461 cm

Width: 448 cm

Draft: 35 cm, each ton will add another 5 cm

Air draft: 340 cm

Heigth from deck to supporting beams for solar panels: 230 cm

Other dimensions or more loading capacity are possible, please enquire!

It is easy to extend the boat at a later moment. Each extension makes the boat 321cm longer and costs €10.000. This includes everything needed for the extension: the extra floats for the hulls, the extra lenghts for the chassis as well as the extra deck-elements in Monopan.So, €75.000 is large sum, but you will no longer need to spend endlessly on hull and deck maintenance, even the engine maintenance is barely existant since an electric engine has only one main moving part as opposed to thousands in a combustion engine, it doesn 't need oil replacements and so on. The only thing needed is to replace the rubber seals as scheduled.

You will no longer pay for fuel to travel, a main reason you see so many boats not moving! A quick example: travelling from Belgium to the Mediterranean Sea by inland waterways is always over 250 hours of boating (because of speed restrictions). If you had a boat that consumes 10 L an hour (just to make it easy for calculations) that would be 2500 liters of fuel. And you would only have paid for a one way trip. At the moment fuel is of course more than a euro a liter, and I don 't EVER see fuel prices going down, so generating your own energy comes in cheap in the longer run, even if your primary concerns are not the environment. On top of that, it is very often hard to find fuel along the waterways (I saw people hauling jerrycans OFTEN) and you will be travelling without the constant engine noise....

All you need is a tent, caravan or whatever your imagination can come up with and you are ready to go for this sum.

Standard options for the boat are an insulated cabin, but all special wishes are also possible, like non-standard changes in the dimensions.

The only thing not possible is to make a boat that generates it's own power with solar panels and has a length that is smaller then 12 meters. Making it bigger is easier!

So whether you wish to just travel or live full-time on the water, make a floating bar or travelling catwalk to showcase a clothing line, it is ALL possible, just inquire and express your desires.

So, what if you decided to get this? What will happen next? Easy: The €75.000 will get you an assembled solar powered, sustainable boat, ready to go!

What is not included: just the transportation costs.

What if you want it cheaper?

It is possible to get it as a kit, or to help with the assembly yourself or help in another way. You could think of not buying the deck for example and making your own deck....

Don 't shoot me for my poor sketch-up skills!!

Just start travelling!

Pictures from the prototype in which the engines/electronics/hulls and structural components are stress tested and finetuned can be found in the picture albums "Expedition 2015" on the Captain Sunset facebook page as well as on a funny Imgur somebody made.

I wish to emphasize here that these are pictures of a prototype. The prototype is smaller than the boat here on offer. There is always some experiment in process on the prototype, so there is always some tool or person somewhere in the picture.