Sometimes you can know so much about something you can't see the truth.
Every sailboat or clipper ship, or windjammer from the lowliest pond yacht to the proudest man o'war was solar powered. And, so is every America's cup racing yacht or knockabout daysailer. The wind is primarily created by the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun. This is a result not only of the planet spinning on its axis, but also the fact that the axis is tilted.
So, the guys with their solar cells, batteries, and what-not have the technological heads up their technological garbage chutes. They simply re-invented the wheel, but forgot to knock the corners off. They risked their lives trying to prove they are too stubborn to learn anything outside their narrow field of expertise.
Just 'cuz something is new tech doesn't mean that it's better tech. Perhaps they would have been better off reading a nautical history book than studying solar/electrical conversion. Perhaps the educated dolts might learn something and not try to kill themselves slowly with their next experiment.
In a practical world, the energy needed to move a boat through the water--especially against wind and wave--is beyond solar electrical generation now and probably always be so. This doesn't mean solar power won't be an important part of our future, just not as a transportation fuel unless somebody makes an unpredicted breakthrough. It is far more likely we'll be using solar-powered computers than ships, cars, or trains.
These stunts are politically motivated, not science driven. The people involved know they are not "on to" sometime. And, they knew full well that the only thing making their voyage possible was that if something went wrong, a big high-carbon-footprint U.S. Coast Guard helicopter would appear overhead offering them salvation from their own stupidity.
-- David G. Brown
