Daniel's Adventures

The highly anticipated race was finally becoming a reality. The realization that racing in Monaco would not be cancelled as it was the year before us finally came. Everyone was eagerly looking forward to finally leaving to Monaco, although most were anxious as well. You never have the feeling that there’s been enough testing.
The first days in Monaco were mostly assembling the boat and the technical inspections. Of course, exploring Monaco and trying to get into the casino was also something we had to do.

After getting through the inspection, we had a day to sail on the sea and fine-tuning the height control in these waters. We only had limited hydrogen fuel however, and getting more gas was not an option, so we had to be careful with how long we test for. The next day, our first challenge started, the maneuverability challenge. We did not score too greatly however on this with such a wide boat.

Our second challenge was coming up, the 16 nautical mile race. Here, we would have to complete this distance in the shortest time possible. Our boat is however made for long distance, so we focused mostly on the race for the next day, that would be 6 hours of sailing the longest distance possible.

This 16NM race did not go as hoped unfortunately. After some distance onto the rough sea, the boat did not fly smoothly, the waves were way bigger than predicted and the boat was not fine-tuned for this. At a certain point the boat stopped working and we were brought back to shore.

When we were all settled back in the harbor, we saw that it was our electrical converter that was broken. The converter was very damaged and we could not get it working that day. All of us spend that entire day (and night) doing everything that was possible, but that was not enough.

This was the moment we accepted that our highly anticipated long distance race would not even start for us, but also the moment we reflected on the great things that we had achieved. We had built the FIRST foiling hydrogen boat in the world and actually flew in the open sea in Monaco. There were a lot of doubts that we could achieve that from third parties around us. We had mixed feelings but were mostly really proud of what we pulled off. At the day of the awards, we were not expecting any (obviously), but to our great surprise we won the New Generation prize! Which is given to the team that brings a novelty to the market.

The weather turned so cold for such a long period that ice skating on lakes in the Netherlands got possible, an opportunity that should not be missed! Hydro Motion makes no exception for this, it is important to also relax next to counter the busy design sessions.

A new chapter for this year’s team had commenced, the production phase. This would be busier than the design phase, since you don’t have to wait for replies from outside sources anymore. Most things are designed or ordered and the assembly can start. For Electronics this was a very busy period and we even had some help from other departments to stay on schedule.

However, it is also more rewarding that the design phase, you can see the things that you made digitally and design choices becoming materialized. Gradually you start having a more complete boat and everyone’s contribution becomes more clear.

Our time at the temporary office of Scheikunde was very enjoyable, it was very spacious, had a lot of light coming in and even a balcony! Here I did a lot of ground work for the design of the systems that I’m responsible for, the communication interface with the pilot (so-called dashboard), and the fuel cell system. Because of our transition to hydrogen we need a fuel cell that can convert the hydrogen into usable electricity, which would be a first for Solar Boat/Hydro motion. Since we want the integration to be smooth, we also had a lot of meetings/talks within our department but also with engineers of other departments. Learning how to do this effectively was a good skill and will probably help me with my work experience outside of Solar Boat too!

The move to Schiehallen was once again a big task, where our moving skills improved even further somehow. However it was a very spacious place and other teams as Forze and DUT were moving in as well. It even came with a very nice kitchen. It was a cozy sight to see all the wooden houses next to each other in this hall, even though the hall itself is hidden in the industry terrain of the Schiehallen.

After moving in such a big place it was of course time to move to the next step of our building process, the actual production! For elektro this meant buying components, printing circuit boards, and assembling/soldering.

It had been a while since we had a team activity that did not include working on the boat, this is why our team manager organized our team weekend! We were split up in groups, that were mixed up between activities. We had for example many challenges to complete and went even for a swim in the cold sea in Scheveningen!

During these months, the departments are decided and every engineer has got their task and role, it still consists of office work and researching/documentation. So it is nice to alternate this with some team activities where we can also grow as a team in a more relaxed environment.

Of course we also had to give our update to the world of who we were and what we were going to do: Build the first foiling hydrogen boat! The plan is to reuse the hull from the 2019 boat that won the championship in the open sea class, and to modify it and fit it to become hydrogen powered and to give it strong hydrofoils to be able to lift the 1000kg of the boat. As far as our name, we decided to keep the logo and official team name the same: the one of Solar Boat. However, the project would be called Hydro Motion. This would make for an easier transition for coming years, although we were introducing ourselves by that name as well already.

It then was time to say goodbye to our little office at Schiehallen, and to become a moving company (again). Meanwhile, our office was being made in the M2 hall of Schiehallen, together with the ones of Forze and Dut. This would also include a workplace and would be the solution for at least this year’s production. These offices should have been made already but had some delays, this is why we moved to the old chemistry building of TU Delft in the meanwhile.

Besides putting most of my time in Solar Boat, I also helped my sister on some weekends with her ambitious project, building a tiny house on her own! With some support of my father, she was planning to build a house on wheels from scratch to move later on near Eindhoven. As a creative person, it is a dream come true to build a house that is exactly as how she sees best. I will update this single post with all tiny house updates of the year.

It is a lot of work and was estimated to be six months in production. Not everything has gone smoothly but this is the first time that either my sister or father have started such a big project and I am really proud of them, and very thankful that I could have part as well in building it.

A lot of progress was being made on the tiny house, at some point it even was ready to be moved to an outside location. I do notice that the amount of help I can be is shrinking as I’m getting more busy with Solar Boat.

It is really nice to see how my sister also wants this house to be more sustainable. She plans to have solar panels on the house and to have a compost separating toilet instead of the regular flush toilet. This way she could theoretically also live off-grid. Some of the building materials, such as the windows or the wooden planks of the floor, have been picked up for a pack of beers or even for free at Martplaats (marketplace).

It was very exciting to start with a project that I knew would take a whole year. The focus on the first weeks really was on getting to know the team and boats in general. All interaction that we had before was a Zoom speeddate of 2 minutes with each other team member. We were meeting at the ‘Ketelmeer’ to watch the 2020 team sail in their self-organized competition. Due to Covid the competition in Monaco was cancelled, and that is why they asked Twente, Sunflare and Clafis to race. It was a nice opportunity to see the upcoming team, but the boat was very for a long part of the race so that was unfortunate.

And of course it was also time to actually do some work! For us this meant becoming verhuis B.V. (meaning a moving company). Due to Covid, the Dreamhall had to be closed for a year for renovations to happen. This is the hall where all previous teams had their office and workplace, so this meant that a lot of stuff had to be moved to have an office at the Schiehallen. The Schiehallen was the place where we would temporarily have our office, and later even a workplace.

Here we could be found daily from 9AM till 5PM, talking about what would be our scope and our mission&vision. It was more orientation than actually building something, but that’s a good way to start a project. We had to sit in a certain way so that distance to each person could be kept which was a bit weird at first, but you get used to it.

Another thing that we did, was fun activities and expirements that were not necessarily related to building boats, this was to bring us closer as a team but also force you to think creatively.