Record-breaking solar crossing

Guinness World Record holder Simon Milward explains how he built and motored his solar-powered boat across the English Channel

- Simon Milward

Developing the first boat to cross the English Channel powered directly by solar panels (with no batteries) was a rather circuitous journey. It had started a couple of years earlier when I’d seen a massive, bright orange Tucker Sno-Cat in London’s Science Museum. This had been part of the first convoy of motorised vehicles to cross the Antarctic.

Looking at the Sno-Cat, I’d wondered if I could make a solar-powered vehicle to cross Antarctica. After all, the Antarctic actually contains the biggest desert on earth and has 24-hour daylight in the Austral summer. So it should be the perfect location for a solar-powered vehicle (but for all the ice, snow, freezing temperatures and blizzards).

I mentioned this to my dad as a joke and he said he thought the Sahara would be better. So I made a solar-powered electric bike and, in 2013, traversed the Western Sahara on it. I contacted Guinness World Records after the crossing, but they said there would potentially be limitless similar challenges and they could only provide records for travelling between specific, clearly defined areas such as crossing a body of water from one country to another. I asked if the English Channel would do and they said yes (with certain stipulations, including having a support boat, at least two independent, qualified timers, not using batteries and taking less than 12 hours).

Building the boat

I, therefore, set about making a boat. I had a solar panel company and so had plenty of panels including the two that were optimised for directly powering the 24V electric bike to cross the Sahara.