It is flat and it is huge, looking much like a white-and-blue space ship - and it is one skipper's dream.

German adventurer Raphael Domjan has come one step closer to realizing his plan to sail the globe in what he says is the world's largest solar-powered boat. The catamaran-style yacht called PlanetSolar sporting some 5,400 square feet (500 square meters) of solar panels was put into the water for the first time in the northern German city of Kiel.



Domjan is planning to start in April 2011 what he says would be the first-ever world tour in a large boat powered solely by the sun.

In the meantime, he wants to extensively test the boat, which took 13 months to build at the Knierim Yachtbau shipyard.



It is nearly 102 feet (31 meters) long, almost 50 feet (15 meters) wide and stands 24-1/2 feet (7.5 meters) high.

"The technology is new, and this type of boat with this type of construction is new," Ehlert-Meyer said.



Domjan is planning to stay as close to the equator as possible to catch the best sunlight on his trip from Europe to New York and San Francisco to Australia, Saudi Arabia and back to Europe. The trip is expected to take 140 days.

"This boat is completely new," the skipper said. "It is very fast."

The SS Silla is officially the world’s fastest floating sauna, setting the world record last Saturday, July 4th in Marstrand, West Sweden, during Match Cup Sweden. The sauna reached 15.5 knots (nautical miles per hour), the equivalent of 28.71 kph/17.84 mph. To give you an idea of of how fast that is, the fastest speed acheived by a boat was 275.9 knots, the fastest human swam 4.6 knots, and the fastest aquatic animal, the sailfish, can reach 59.1 knots. The SS Silla’s 15.5 knots will most certainly allow for relaxing in a jacuzzi in style.

The Eduard Bohlen was a ship that ran aground off the coast of Namibia's Skeleton Coast on September 5, 1909, in a thick fog. Currently the wreck lies in the sand a distance from the shoreline.



The ship was a 2,272 gross ton cargo ship with a length of 310 feet. In September 1909, it ran aground in thick fog and wrecked at Conception Bay while on a voyage from Swakopmund to Table Bay. This wreck is said to personify the loneliness of Namibia’s coast best. Its remains lie rusting in the sand, partially buried.

Where there is a will, there is a way! I somehow doubt this is Coast Guard / OSHA / Common Sense approved :)