LinkNotes: The Frisian Solar Challenge

2008-06-26

The Frisian Solar Challenge

A famous skating competition tour held in Fryslan, one of the northern provinces of The Netherlands. is The Eleven-cities Tour. This is a tour of almost 200 km in length, on frozen canals, rivers and lakes between eleven Frisian cities.

That tour is not held each year, mostly because the Dutch winters do not permit skating on natural ice every year.

Moreover, a result of the climate change we see more warm winters nowadays and many people already believe we will not experience the Tour again because of global warming.

There is, however, an fascinating alternative, which is taking place along the same historical 200 kilometres right now: the world’s largest race of solar vessels, The Frisian Solar Challenge

Around 50 teams of mainly universities and specialist companies from Europe participate in the event. There are teams from Brazil, England, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Poland, and - of course - The Netherlands.

clipped from www.frisiansolarchallenge.nl

The Frisian Solar Challenge has started!

clipped from www.frisiansolarchallenge.nl

Information

Start and finish

Addresses campings

Solar Challenge 2006

News

Organization

Links

clipped from ap.google.com

The six-day race covers a 135-mile course on a network of canals, rivers and lakes in the north of the Netherlands. Speed limits on narrow waterways have been temporarily waived for the boats, the fastest of which can go nearly 19 mph.
Sunlight is not the most obvious source of renewable energy in the rain-soaked Netherlands, but organizers say the threat of poor weather will spark creative design.
Participants met that challenge with technologies that included water-cooled solar cells, carbon fiber propellers, and mathematically-optimized designs to reduce drag.

clipped from www.youtube.com