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You might be better off buying an old aluminium tinny and modifying that. Lasts longer than plywood, and is already a boat. Hardest part done. Making a roof and adding solar panels is relatively easy
I think the best option is to take two old sailboats (already efficient hulls) and connect them together into a large catamaran with a platform in between them. This greatly increases the possible surface area for solar panels, with a minimum of water resistance added. It allows you to add a large section of solar panels in the middle without anything adding drag in the water in that section.
LOL! That's the best option? Why wouldn't you just start with a catamaran?
If you ever built a thing like that please give me the link to your YouTube, that would be funny as hell to watch.
A single-hull can be made self-righting, in case it flips in bad weather. A 35 foot catamaran? You're not getting that back up-right with a crew of one - you basically hope and pray a bigger boat comes along at that point.
... Now I've watched the video, there is no ballast, not even a dedicated bilge space, and with the shallow draft, I am uncertain how the boat in OOP isn't too top-heavy to stay up-right. Forget the "Sovereign Living" bit at the end, I'mma need to see some solid design and build data before listening to another word from that guy.
In short: I take back any mean things I said or implied about Catamarans.
I was just stanning one of my favorite things about, and pet criteria for, properly-designed boats. I just sold my first sail-boat because I wanted a bigger one, with a better capsize-rating.
Except that the risk of a 35 foot catamaran flipping over is very significantly lower in the first place.
Depends where you sail, but I've made some edits to that comment since anyways.
Now I've watched the video, there is no ballast
He does end up adding ballast later. Added batteries, living stuff and about 150KG of rocks.
His takeaway was that it didn't really affect cruising speed and that he should have made a sturdier, heavier bottom hull.
Edit: he's in the process of turning it into a trimaran at the moment also for stability.
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Uhm. This is not done by welding a bit or using big bolts. If done wrong, your “catamaran” will not survive a single wave, let alone the conditions of the open sea. Don’t forget how much force water has.
So if you do this on a lake, you’ll be fine, but not in open waters.
Catemaran hulls are specifically designed as such, you can't use normal hulls.
You do gain the extra room for solar, but equally you also make the boat wider, making it less flacrical in confined waterways like canals and rivers.
In high latitudes having a vertical solar sail might actually work quite well to well as both a solar array and a wind sail. But that will require significant engineering design time to get right.
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Fiberglass and resin or epoxy on plywood can last very well and is easy to repair if you go for "work boat finish".
I have every book I can find on this. Phil Bolger, Dynamite Payson, Jim Michelak, all easy and good designs.
The Birdwatcher style would lend itself well to solar panels, or Michelak's IMB (International Marine Beacher, from a magazine competition).
I have a half-built "Cartopper" in my shed. I need to go work on it more. Sometimes it's more fun to read about than do.
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hey that's my retirement plan
I remember reading about a Finn who spent 5 years, half part calculating, half building a small aeroplane in his apartment. Neighbours were let in on the knowing when he needed them to open their doors to poke a plane part into their apartements to get the thing down from IIRC third floor and out.
He flew it too!
I read it in the early nineties and the thing was maybe from the eighties. He didn't solder anything but drilled like 30.000 holes and riveted it all together.
Finns are cool.
And then there's this German champ hobbying together an entire tank in their basement:
Reminds me of Richards Reactor, a dude in Sweden who attemoted to build a smal scale nuclear reactor of some sort in his apartment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Handl
Not too long ago his blogg was still up, found this but the nuclear stuff is gone:
https://richardsreactor.blogspot.com/2017/02/170222-visit-from-police.html?m=1
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USA: and I took that personally.
You have been blockaded by USA.
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The USA do be blowing up boats and murdering their crews on the regular these days...
No touching of US boats.
But this touches their drill baby drill with a boat.
This will leave them more confused than after a weekend grinder bender at a GOP conference.
He want's to make it
AI controlled
aww man
I respect his solar commitement, but listening to him it's obvious he's a libertarian Elon-Bro... my immediate reaction is "oh no... it's stupid."
And the concept isn't new, solar boats have been a thing for ages now and most of them are (like @OwOarchist@pawb.social suggested) catamarans or trimarans.
Can we please avoid using abelist slurs in this community?
Heard and edited.
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I'd like to second Povoq's request and ask that we're more mindful of the words we choose and their impact please.
Honestly not a terrible use of ai. I imagine it's pretty good at spotting things in a sparse environment like the middle of the ocean.
Wouldn’t that just be a regular software that uses ML for just image detection?
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Yes and no. "AI" has been a marketing term over a decade now, it's a vague statement which is pretty much mandatory to get funding.
In theory, I agree with you, automated navigation of boats seems like a good fit for machine learning.
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Oh, it's OK, he specifically addressed how to get good AI results. He commanded Chat-GPT to give him good info. If you just ask nicely it won't work, you have to be forceful. Forget boat building, he should clearly be teaching classes on using LLMs.
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Someone in the comments said it best, it's a very cool canal boat but nothing that light would stand-up to open ocean waves.
This specific design maybe not, but similar light plywood-epoxy catamarans based on designs by James Wharram are well regarded and proven open-ocean sailboats.
its ok for coastal mediteranean too. He did use it through canals of northern europe to get down to spain.
That's actually impressive.
He gets into this in the later videos but he's living aboard it quite a while now in the Mediterranean.
Meh, do you know the level of tech that spread mankind across the world. Roughly logs. OP is likely fine.
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Such a cool project. Now, if only I didn't live 1000 km from the sea in a small apartment...
Just mod it into a helicopter to carry the boat, easy.
Yeah I'll make a design on the back of a napkin. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Just build it out the window and wait for the waters to rise. Biblically correct method 👍
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Frankly waiting for the news story where he gets killed "proving" his concept...
The first warning bell was "rated for cross-atlantic"... "rated" by whom?
Of course then there's the latter part where he talks about the next one is going to be super amazingly polished autonomous vessel with everything up to and including a sauna from the solar... And of course the sovereign citizen take....
Cool doing a project like this, but it smells of overconfidence in what it currently is and how trivial it will be to get to something much much more...
Leaving a comment so I can watch this later.
maybe star/save your comment or something because i am doing the same. i'm planning on kitting out my camping setup with solar so i can take our ebikes with us and i bet this video has all the info i need (i am pretty sure i have it all figured out except the precise wiring but more knowledge never hurt okay i just thought up an exception to that but you know what i mean) i am not pausing babylon 5 tho
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Does he say how much it cost him?
No, he only says that it is affordable to a medium sized budget.
My educated guess is that it costs around 25,000€ to build this. The ePropulsion engine and battery you can see in the video is about 10,000€ of that.
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Is that a river boat they started with? That thing looks like it’d crack in two over a strong wave.
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And it lets you look like a super-spy.
@Nickelalloy
Initial thought: Wow, I'm sure many have started that but not finished.
Subsequent thought: Of course.
Indeed.
I have looked at his videos a bit as they were released and he makes it to the miditerranian quite well!
It does not run forever.
If only we could build an undersea country in this way, but without the psychopaths. And let the land people make hell for themselves if they want, just freedom for the sane ones.
Welcome... to rapture!
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this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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