Why Silent Yachts' technology?
What makes our solar-electric yachts unique and sets them apart from the rest? It is our extensive experience with the technology. By substituting generators with solar power and large battery banks in order to supply energy to all household appliances on board since the mid 1990s and by pioneering the solar-electric drivetrain during the mid 2000s, Silent Yachts has gathered about 30 years of experience in optimizing sustainable energy generation on yachts.
As the original brand who invented solar powered electric production yachts, we have always been committed to a technology which was prior considered as a niche. We were already building solar powered yachts with electric propulsion at a time when no other legacy shipyard even considered using this technology in the future.
Since 2009, our electric yachts have sailed 10.000s of nautical miles flawlessly, crossed oceans and hosted charter guests for hundreds of weeks all around the world – across the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean.
Recently, it has become increasingly popular within the industry to power catamarans with solar energy. Nevertheless, not all electric yachts are created the same. While it might be easy to equip a boat with solar panels, it is a far more complex process to create an electric yacht that fulfils the full potential of luxury solar yachting. There are many vital considerations when using solar technologies: efficiency, range, reliability, comfort, longevity and sustainability are all criteria to optimize. Inevitably, to cover all these aspects, it needs a clean sheet design from scratch.
Taking an existing fossil fueled powered or sailing catamaran and including solar features on the model will always create a compromised result. In comparison, our fully electric models were designed from a clean sheet and engineered to be fully solar powered from start to finish. This is why our yachts outperform competitors regarding weight, daily solar production, range, speed, consumption, space, safety and life-span.
It is not the kWp promised in a brochure, it is the real energy production and the realistic consumption that makes the difference for you as a customer. It will either enable you to run the A/C for the whole night and to drive dozens of miles without running the generator – or not. A Silent Yachts’ catamaran is capable of doing that. This is the difference.
Our founders, Michael and Heike Köhler, were the ones to create the solar yachting space by starting Silent Yachts (then called Solarwave) years before the industry was aware of the advantages of this new approach. Nearly 30 years after starting their initial research, Silent Yachts now shapes the future of electric yachting.
Solarwave 46 in Lakka bay, island of Paxos, Greece, in 2010.
Science & Experience Based Design
Science & Experience Based Design
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Bolt-on construction
Our bolt-on construction design makes it easy to replace individual panels for repair or upgrade them to more efficient versions in the future. In contrary, solar panels which are directly integrated into the hull or glued onto the roof are not designed to be replaced when required.
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Rooftop positioning
Placing the panels horizontally on the top ensures maximum energy harvest. In comparison to vertical panels integrated into the hulls, this positioning captures more energy from the sun while also protecting the solar cells from being damaged during mooring in a marina or when in contact with sea water.
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Zero shade principle
Silent Yachts purposely exclude the addition of sails or wind turbines as they cause the issue of partial shading, leading to a dramatic decrease in energy output and efficiency. Our years of testing revealed that wind turbines actually create more drag during cruising than energy produced at the same time.
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Market leading panels
The rigid glass solar panels used on our yachts offer market leading efficiency and 40 years of warranty. Flexible panels mounted on curved surfaces or integrated into the hull of a yacht are generally less efficient, prone to output reducing microcracks and have a much shorter lifespan with a warranty time of only 2 years.
Decades of research, development, optimizing and successfully delivering the full solar yachting experience have put us in a position to lead the industry towards a clean, electric future.
Upgradable modular platform
At Silent Yachts we feel passionately about avoiding built-in obsolescence. This is the driving principle of so many industries, that produce one model in the full knowledge that a later model will supersede it, encouraging the buyer to replace their car, boat, plane, mobile phone for the newest, latest and greatest.
In our view, built-in obsolescence does not work in harmony with nature. Yachts are very commodity rich and costly things to make. Although Silent Yachts goes to great lengths to minimize our carbon footprint and maximize the use of recyclable resources, by far the most intelligent and environmentally friendly method of producing a vessel is to do so with hulls that are designed for solar purpose, efficiency and very long lifespan.
For this reason, each of our yachts is based on our signature modular platform design. This means that essential hardware components such as the solar panels, batteries and electric motors can be replaced with ease.
As result, our electric catamarans can be upgraded with the latest components years after they were launched into the water for the very first time, making sure the yacht always remains state-of-the-art.
This gives you peace of mind, knowing that today’s Silent Yachts will always be tomorrow’s.
Silent 64
What makes her the most iconic solar yacht in the world
At Silent Yachts we have deep affection for the original model: the Silent 64. Launched in 2016, this catamaran was the first series production fully solar powered electric yacht in the world. In 2018, she set up a world-record by becoming the first serially produced solar-powered bluewater catamaran to cross the Atlantic. Based on a fully solar optimized design, she back then combined our very best technologies with a philosophy aimed towards maximum efficiency. In that regard, her lightweight carbon fiber hull offers impressive performance even by current standards. Still in daily service for Silent Yachts’ R&D today, this yacht is the company’s elder. Filled with ingenuity, and like every Silent Yachts vessel, she has never let us down.