Take the Elfstedentocht with a solar boat. Six students from the Roelof van Echten College from Hoogeveen have been working towards it for months. This week they are finally allowed to sail and they do so during the Ultimate Solar Boat Challenge.
The students complete the entire journey in five stages. “Today we are going from Franeker to Birdaard”, says participant Erik Wierenga. “Initially we were going to go to Dokkum, but because of the bad weather, the organization has decided to stop earlier. I have the honor to sail through the hell of Noorden.”
It is the first time that they participate, through the research and design subject at school they learned about the competition. “A fantastic project that everyone was immediately enthusiastic about. We have all secretly become a bit of boat fanatics.”
For a year they worked on the boat that runs on solar energy. “We received the kit in November”, teammate Joyce Timmermans adds. “After that you put everything together, screw it, glue it. Then another lick of paint is applied and the entire electrical system still has to go in.”
Timmersmans is therefore only too happy that the boat continues to float. “That’s great, of course,” she laughs. “It would have been really terrible if we went out on the water and then the boat sinks. Then all the effort would have been for nothing.”
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