TU Twente Solar Boat: Reflecting on a Year of Triumph

As the year comes to a close, we’ve been reflecting on all the amazing things we’ve achieved together. It’s been a year filled with hard work, big wins, and valuable lessons.

A major part of our success has been thanks to our partner Eurocircuits, who played a crucial role in assembling the PCBs for our Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPTs). These devices connect our solar panels to the battery. The amount of solar power that can be extracted from a solar panel highly depends on various factors, such as temperature and light intensity.  The MPPT adjusts the voltages and currents of the solar panels to find this maximum power point.

But this year wasn’t just about building the boat—we also took on the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge, which turned out to be a real adventure.

Things started off great when our solar boat passed the technical inspection without any major issues—a huge relief, especially since we built the boat entirely from scratch this year. On the first day of racing, we were thrilled to place fourth in the qualifying race

The second day, however, brought an unexpected challenge. While testing in the harbor before the Endurance race, a sudden gust of wind flipped our boat. It was a pretty scary moment, but thanks to our pilot’s quick thinking and teamwork, we got the boat back on track. Despite starting the race an hour late, we still managed to keep up with some of the other teams.

The final day was another rollercoaster. We had the slalom and the championship race ahead, but our boat was still feeling the effects of the flip. The motor coupling started slipping, and even though we did our best to fix it on the water, we couldn’t quite reach the speed we needed. We ended up finishing seventh in the solar class—not the result we’d hoped for, but considering everything we went through, we’re proud of what we accomplished.

Looking back, this year has shown us what we’re capable of when we work together and push through tough times. We’ve learned a lot, and none of this would’ve been possible without the support of Eurocircuits.