Christelle and Paul put the sun back into sailing
Published on 17 May, 2013
CQUniversity Gladstone casual academic Dr Christelle Catuogno and her husband Paul Hannah (an alumnus) are now the proud owners of a sailboat which has its natural wind power supplemented by solar power driving electric engines.
With no diesel engine on board, and hence no diesel fuel, the sailboat is now completing non-polluting.
Christelle and Paul on board their innovative sailboat
"It took a few years of waiting for prices to go down and technology to become available and a few hard and frustrating months to turn Delfina into eDelfina," Dr Catuogno said.
"We have a functioning electric system that is using solar energy to turn our two golf cart electric engines.
"We now have one of the few electric sailboats in the world so it's quite unique. Paul did all the maths to get the electric circuit right and it is completely custom-built for our needs."
Christelle and Paul would like to thank the CQUni people who supported their project and helped with encouragement and expert advice. These included: (in no particular order) Muriel Strahm, Richard Clegg, Alan McLeod, Subash Sharma, Gene Springer, David Druskovich, Sanath Alahakoon and Malcolm Leinster.
"Other who helped included Angelo Maltabes (BatteryWorld Gladstone), Gordon Low (Fairbairn Engineering), Ken Hannah, Bob Kane (Welcon), Rod and John (Transcritical)."
The Delfina in dry dock during the refit
Some of the technology enabling the project