The first ever entirely solar-powered ship to circle the globe embarked on this tremendous journey that has taken it through 28 countries, 11 seas and 3 oceans two years ago and lasted a whopping 585 days. Reportedly named the MS Tûranor Planetsolar, its journey started on the 27th of September 2010, at 2:00 p.m. and ended at 2:21 p.m., in Monaco.
The ship has started a new journey during this month, touching at famous ports of the Mediterranean Sea, like Spain’s Barcelona and Mallorca, as well as Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia. The crew of this massive sailing wonder says that it’s actually “more than a ship”, now being a “mobile battery”. It can power up concerts and lightshows, can hold exhibitions and do all sorts of activities that other ships cannot, in every port it docks in.
The name Tûranor was picked from the fabled Lord of the Rings book, by J. R. R. Tolkien, where it stands for “the power of the sun”. Built as a catamaran, it measures 115 feet in length (35 meters) and presents itself covered in 537 square meters (5,780 square feet) of photovoltaic panels (a total of 38,000 individual solar cells feed 6 huge blocks of Li-Ion batteries) with 18.8% yield, all the ensemble generating around 260,000 kWh of electricity over the so-planned 60,006 kilometer voyage (37,000 nautical miles).
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