Boating New Zealand - May 2018

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BOATBRIEF

The SoelCat 12 – a solar-powered

catamaran designed by Holland’s

Soel Yachts – has begun operating in

French Polynesia’s Bora Bora, taking

guests on a sustainable and noise-

free tour of the lagoon.

I

n an initiative designed to promote eco-tourism, the

Okeanos Pearl is a cooperative project between Soel Yachts,

the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea and the Bora Bora

Pearl Beach Resort.

With its eicient hull lines, the cat requires only

2.17kWh of battery capacity per nautical mile. To achieve the

same eiciency, a petrol-powered vessel would have to use 0.22

of a litre of fuel per nautical mile.

With a battery capacity of 120kWh, the SoelCat 12 has a

60nm range at her 8 knot cruising speed, and when the sun’s

shining it’s even more. he integrated boost mode allows higher

speeds – up to 14 knots.

Bora Bora has more than 50 outboard and diesel-powered

excursion and shuttle boats that consume more than two

million litres of imported fuel every year.

he cat can also become a powerful grid-feeding station

when it’s not carrying passengers – up to four households

can be supplied with 15kVA of inverter power. he resort, for

example, can use the boat’s solar power for its desalination

plant, producing up to 4,000 litres of fresh water every hour.

Designed for easy disassembly, the cat can be shipped to

destinations anywhere around the world.

Soel Yachts was a inalist for the Tourism for Tomorrow

Awards in 2017. And later in the year Okeanos Pearl won the

Innovation Award at the Trophées du Tourisme in Tahiti. BNZ

E-volution in

paradise

RIGHT The Okeanos Pearl

gives residents at the Pearl

Beach Resort in Bora Bora a

peaceful, noise-free tour of the

lagoon. Her bank of solar panels

can also power the resort’s

desalination plant.

BOATINGNZ.CO.NZ

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Visit http://www.soelyachts.com.