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PMG – the eco-conscious boatyard
Philippe Guenat has always wanted to build environmentally-friendly boats, and he has been doing that for the best decade. And as advances in solar technology keep being made, Philippe’s PMG boatyard keeps designing more innovative and eco-friendly vessels as witnessed by the construction of the latest group of vessels the company is building for Silent Yachts. Philippe really started to be intrigued by solar power in 2008; he thought enough progress has been made with solar panels that the world was ready for a solar-assisted yacht. But his plans were met with skepticism and de-
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PMG
- the eco-conscious boatyard
Photography by Thor Jorgen Udvang
rision with everyone he approached in Europe until while on a visit to Thailand he stumbled upon Corrie Lamprecht who was running the Bakri Cono shipyard in Ocean Marina. The two struck a partnership and went into business designing the first solar-assisted yacht, Heliotrope. In August of 2019, the partnership ended with Philippe taking sole control of the company, renaming it PMG SHIPYARD. Originally, Bakri Cono focused on OEMs for a Middle Eastern company, specifically fast catamarans. Then the Heliotrope 65 solar-assisted project took place taking advantage of a catamaran’s large roof surface. It was the first solar-assisted (8 kw/h) luxury powercat built in Thailand by people living in Thailand, including Michel Royer, the solar specialist, and Albert Nazarov, the boat’s designer. The yacht was powered by solar energy except for the engine. The Heliotrope 65 was designed in 2010, and construction ran from 2011-2013. Bakri Cono had to invent and develop new technology for the yacht as it was an original design and build. In 2013 the company upgraded its electronic system from the traditional breaker system to the more advanced computerized CZone digital switching technology similar to the technology used in building modern aircraft.
Philippe describes his ethos: “Whenever possible we install solar panels on the roof of the yachts which helps makes the vessel energy independent. Normal generators burn an average of 10 liters of fuel per hour or around 240 liters per day to create electricity. Not to mention emitting bad smells, smoke and pollution. Solar energy is efficient, clean and environmentally friendly, making it unnecessary to burn fuel to run your engines when at anchor or moored at a marina.” Everyone wants a comfortable boat, emitting little or no toxins into the environment, using renewable energy — the planet is suffering. But the technology is not easily available, so PMG has reached out to experts for advice. Thirty years ago, yachts were quite basic as they were powered by 12 volts and the power created was used mostly maintaining batteries and to illuminate the fuel and navigation lights. The size of cables for 12v batteries was very big and the batteries weren’t very good. The comfort was minimal on board. As electric car technology advances so does that of electric boat technology, but they are different. There is more space on a boat, as the boat has a permanent fight against the sea so it needs a lot more power to keep running at the same speed, therefore it needs more batteries and this can’t be done on 12 volts. In about 2010, boats started to use 24v. The Silent Yachts boats with an electric engine will have 400volt outage. It will have over 40 batteries (24v each). The expected cruising speed is projected to be between 8-10 knots. If conditions are optimal (little cloud cover, so the batteries can charge) the boat will not need to stop. PMG is actively teaching students from the Vocational Industrial Seaboard College to give them training in working with high voltage (DC in this case), which also requires workers to wear special protective equipment as the higher voltage represents a potential danger during installation of the electrical system. Owners will be given a manual on how to do deal with problems that might arise at sea and they can interact with Philippe and his team if they run into problems that they can’t fix themselves. Right now, the optimal power supply supplied to a yacht by solar power would be 25 percent, but in ten years Philippe and his crew hope to see that doubled with more and more advancement in battery technology, as energy storage is still a challenge. PMG is also using digital switching to power the boat so the batteries are connected around the boat with one light cable which connects through a series of boxes strategically placed throughout the boat to power the utilities. This saves a lot of cables and a lot of weight. This also makes trouble shooting a lot easier if problems arise.
Background on PMG’s solar-powered project
James Nicholls in a brilliant piece for the Pattaya Mail described the building of Heliotrope and the PMG team thus: « The amount of attention to detail and clever thinking that went into the creation of Heliotrope was immense. It was a forerunner of mixed energy marine transportation and this pioneering spirit was engendered by two more members of PMG technical advisory board. Raphael Domjan, another Swiss national, has perhaps the highest credentials of anyone on the planet of the understanding and practical use of solar energy. It was Raphael, who is the president and founder of the Swiss Foundation for Sustainability and
the PlanetSolar project in which the boat ‘Turanor’ completed the first ever circumnavigation of the planet solely using solar energy when launched at the beginning of the decade, and which set a Transatlantic speed record of 22 days in 2013. The knowledge and ideas behind Turanor PlanetSolar, virtually a floating solar panel of nearly 35 metres in length, which also collects eight tonnes of marine rubbish and polluting material as it sails across the oceans, has been brought to bear in the philosophy and technology of Heliotrope. Raphael is aware, however, that commercially, solar energy cannot go the whole way in running luxury craft just yet, but he has no doubt that one day it will be the way that all boats are powered at speed. « Heliotrope is an enormous step forward in this development and while she is powered by two traditional (though stateof-the-art) marine diesel engines, all of her ancillary power is derived from solar energy. Heliotrope is capable of producing seven kilowatts using solar power which provides all the power necessary to maintain and run the vessel without the need for a generator or shore power. Electricity can be utilised in the most remote parts of our world without the need for noisy and polluting generators. Indeed, using the sophisticated CZone system from New Zealand the boat can be completely controlled by iPad in absentia, meaning essential services such as ventilation can be programmed and controlled whilst the boat has no-one aboard, even over lengthy periods of time. Not only can Heliotrope’s solar panels provide direct 220v power, any additional unused power generated goes to the batteries for recharge. At the same time the challenges of solar power on water, high temperatures, humidity, damage to components by movement at sea and the like, have been eliminated due to the knowledge and the experiences of Raphael Domjan and the PlanetSolar project. « Heliotrope was one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated boats on the water due to Domjan and another advisory board member, astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who left NASA in 2012 and became the President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Lopez-Alegria holds many records, not the least of which are for the longest spaceflight (215 days), most number of times of getting out of a craft in space with ten Extra-vehicular Activities (EVA) and has spent more cumulative EVA time, 67 hours 40 minutes, than anybody else. » The latest news is that Michael Lopez-Alegria will be back in space in January of 2022 as commander of the first civilian flight from the Axiom company to the ISS station. Please contact Philippe at info@pmgshipyard.com if you have any questions about his company and what it can do.
