We are happy to announce that Oceanvolt will be sponsoring Conrad Colman Ocean Racing in the upcoming Vendee Globe 2016 and the races before it! We will be supplying Conrad's Imoca 60 "Galileo" with a complete 15kW electric propulsion system that will be partially powered by the SolarCloth solar sails installed on the boat. The boat's mainsail will have enough thin-film solar panels laminated into the sail to generate 2.2 kW per hour.
The Vendée Globe is a 45 000km race around the world, solo, and without stops! The race leaves from les Sables d’Olonne (in France), on November 6th 2016 and comes back to that same city between 75 and 100 days after that. A fleet of as many of 25 IMOCA 60s are expected to line up in November and will sail down the Atlantic before leaving the three famous Capes - Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn - to port (left) and the Antarctic continent to starboard before finishing back in the bay of Les Sables d'Olonne.
All participants to the race are IMOCA 60: 18,23 meters monohulls. They have to comply with IMOCA Class rules for security reasons but the boats are far from identical since the oldest boat in the race was built in 1997 and the newest one came out in 2015! Conrad's boat will be the only boat participating that is powered by 100% clean energy!
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
Official press release available for publishing can be found here.