Solar Powered Boat Arrives In Miami
MIAMI (CBS4) --A shiny white boat glided into Miami Saturday powered by one of Florida's most famous resources – the sun.
The Turanor PlanetSolar, the largest solar-powered boat ever built, arrived from Monaco where it began a journey to circumnavigate the world.
The aim? To spread awareness of solar power and the options available to us.
"We want to show what we can do with solar power,'' said Raphael Domjan, the Swiss engineer who designed the boat told CBS news partner The Miami Herald during a satellite phone interview last week. ``We have the technology to change the world, not tomorrow, but today.''
The 102-foot-long boat looks somewhat like a bat with a white cap, with wings that seem to reflect the light when they actually absorb its energy. Its Swiss-German builders say the boat's name, Turanor PlanetSolar, into "power of the sun."
The boat is not the first solar powered vessel to visit South Florida. In 2007 a 46-foot catamaran Sun21, arrived in Miami from southern Spain, completing the first Atlantic crossing by a solar-powered boat.
