Sailing Yacht Zero: The transition to sea trials

Sailing Yacht Zero has now entered sea trials, an open-water “test drive” that will ensure its systems are checked before being approved for service. Fittingly, this move from the inside construction and test phase to the outside portion of the project is a huge moment for both the vessel and the maritime industry at large.

Let’s take a step back. Here at Foundation⁰, we’ve been following the Sailing Yacht Zero project for several years. This first-of-its-kind vessel is powered entirely by renewable energy and has seen wave-after-wave of innovations.

On first impressions, it’s easy to think that going all-electric is as easy as swapping out fuel tanks with batteries, but this is far from the case. The reality is much more complex, with Sailing Yacht Zero closer to a development platform for renewable energy than a vessel.

Of course, the yacht does have batteries (a rather incredible 5 MWh of them), but unlike fossil fuels, these don’t provide enough power on a single charge (or refuel) to last for weeks. Instead, Zero has to harvest energy as it sails to keep those batteries topped up.

This led to an array of eye-catching developments — like a groundbreaking hydrogeneration system or PVT panels that capture heat to be fed into a chiller — but also an array of less obvious advances.

The key to this is energy reduction and management. This means thousands upon thousands of engineering decisions that save energy across the board. It also means moving away from certain traditional sailing hardware, like going from a hydraulic sailing system to a direct electric-powered one.

These advances and engineering steps are why Sailing Yacht Zero is more an energy development platform than a traditional vessel — and it’s what makes this shift to sea trials so enthralling.

“We’re at the point where all this innovation, science, and engineering is entering the real world,” says Eduard van Benthem, the project manager of Sailing Yacht Zero. “As much as can be tested so far has been tested, but harbour and sea trials are the moment when theory meets application.”

For new technologies to prove their worth, they have to be stress tested, and there are few environments as demanding as the ocean. This is where Sailing Yacht Zero now finds itself.

“We’re about to learn a lot,” van Benthem says.

Make sure you check back on Foundation⁰, as we’ll be covering this part of the journey from start to finish.