LIVING ON A 100% SOLAR POWERED YACHT (full tour)

We have spent the last two days living on this incredible solar powered yacht.

Oh, it looks so good.

But before we share the entire experience with you and give you a full tour, let me quickly catch you up to speed on how we got here. A year ago, I fired off a crazy email that I never expected a response to. It was the spring of 2020. Like that 2020, we were living in a hotel in Singapore, trying to figure out what we were going to do with a travel YouTube channel during a global pandemic. We had a lot of crazy, from biking across the US on like actual bicycles with pedals, to buying a boat and circumnavigating the globe. We must have been watching too much sailing La Vagabond at the time. One day, while I was dreaming about sailing around the world, I fell down this rabbit hole on the Internet where I discovered this beautiful yacht that was completely powered by the sun.

I was feeling a little crazy that day, so I fired off an email to the company that said something along the lines of, any chance you have an extra yacht that you'd like to lend to us for us to circumnavigate the globe and make about it on our YouTube channel? To my surprise, we actually received a response. Unsurprisingly, they did not say, yes. It was more something along the lines of, yeah, we don't have an extra yacht just sitting around that you can have. But once international travel is a thing again, we would love to have you on board one of our silent yachts. Long story short, we've kept in touch with the team for over a year now, and what started as a crazy email during desperate times eventually led to this. So now that you hopefully have a better appreciation for how we ended up here, let's start back from the beginning.

Welcome on the boat. Please have a look.

Thank you.

This is Michael and Hikey. They're the founders of silent yachts. And after living on the water for over 20 years, in 2004, they set out to build their first solar powered yacht. And that project eventually turned into silent yachts. And this is Tinker, our mascot. I have looked at this boat on my phone a million times, so to be standing here, it's like, surreal.

The main reason why we started to develop solar power yachts was as the yacht we were searching for was not existing. This is the cockpit where we usually have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Please follow me.

Look at this water.

I love this.

As you can see in the front part, we have two trampolines that invite you to Sit down and have a rest.

I think I could get used to this. Okay, moving on we go. This is incredible. Incredible.

Actually, driving is not so exciting on a boat like this. It's really relaxing. It's not about speed. It's about deceleration, about relaxing and chilling.

I feel like all of the screens here look a lot like a Tesla.

There could be an intention behind. Yes.

Wow. Look at these solar panels.

A little bit bigger setup than our van.

Okay, that's good.

All right, let me give you a full tour of our new solar powered home for the next two nights, starting with. I need to learn my boat terms. What is this part?

A galley.

The back. The galley. Starting with the galley, we have a full kitchen, a stove, a fully functioning freezer and refrigerator. Keep in mind, all of this is powered by the sun. We have a sink with running water, a very fancy concreter, an induction stove, and a dishwasher on a boat.

Yacht.

Moving into the saloon, we have this indoor dining area, indoor driving area. But these are all plan B in case the weather's bad and we can't do those things on time.

Here, the master here. Another cabin. Another VIP cabin. On the port side, we have two cabins, one crew and one guest. Which one are we staying in in the master cabin?

We are.

Of course.

You gave us your master cabbage. I'm honored. Oh, my gosh. The entire front of the yacht is our bedroom. We have tons of storage closets and drawers everywhere. Oh, it's really good. You're gonna have to drag me off this thing. There's a giant tv. And downstairs is the bathroom. Ow. It has its own hot water heater, so you have a good, long, hot shower. We have this beautiful bamboo sink. More storage behind the mirrors, Storage underneath the sink, underneath this bench. Storage everywhere. What's in here?

What's the one thing that's there from the bathroom?

Is it a real toilet?

Of course.

That flushes and everything. There's water in. And moving on to the next bedroom here on the port side. Right, Heike? Yeah.

Thank you for the help.

We have two more bedrooms.

Wow. These rooms are huge.

Every bedroom has its own toilet, sink, and shower with hot water. We also have more storage, another closet, and another huge comfy bed. For some reason, I felt like we were going to be comparing this experience to our van, which saying that out loud sounds silly now, but it's more like comparing it to a house from the outside. You would never know all of this was down here. This is something I don't think I would appreciate if I hadn't lived in the van for so long. Everything that's a wall can open and you can put stuff in it. Do you know how big of a deal that is? Is this storage? Yes. See? Moving into the third bedroom. More storage. Another fully functioning bathroom. Toilet, sink, shower. I'm not going to open that. That looks important. We've been told this is where the crew sleeps. I would happily sign up to be crew if it meant that I could stay here. Put me to work. There is a fourth and final bedroom on the starboard side. They call this one the VIP bedroom. It's pretty much the same size as the master. This is a boat where you live on and you have to have space. Yeah, yeah. And this giant bathroom, the shower is twice the size as the hotel we just came from. And it's all powered by the sun.

No way. Yes.

A washer and a dryer. That is insane.

How did you prove to people that. That a solar powered boat could work?

By simply doing it. We built the boat even though special engineers told us that it is not possible. What we are doing, there was no other way than to prove that it's possible.

Cheers, y'.

All. Enjoy your day. Yes, cheers. Thank you for having us on board.

This is Solarwave Silent 64. And this boat crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2018. It was in fact the first production boat ever that crossed the Atlantic Ocean or any ocean electrically powered by solar energy. So we don't use the steering wheel anymore. We have autopilot and this power steering system. So actually this is the last boat with the steering wheel. All the others don't have steering wheels anymore. It's simply outdated.

The steering wheel is outdated are words that I never expected to hear.

Who needs it?

Can we take a minute to appreciate that not only are we on one of the coolest boats in the world, but just look at where we are. Mallorca is absolutely beautiful.

Just loving life out here. This is truly like being on a Tesla in the water. We just pulled out of port and I never even heard the engine start. It is completely silent. The only thing you can hear is the water hitting the boat.

I don't know if I've ever been this happy in my entire life.

How about eating carbonara in Rome?

Okay. Eating carbonara in Rome was different. This is just like pure joy with no other emotions attached to it. The craziest thing is when we got on a plane in Nashville, our only plan was to go to Italy. And here we are. Karen, Nate 3.0 might be boat life.

Hi. Neighbors, we have just dropped anchor in santa pon, so the water is incredibly clear. And we're about to go for a swim.

So this is now 100. Have some fun.

So you're. You're going to start me at 100? Of course. This is a. I never tested before, Battery powered toy.

Good luck.

They're working. Wow.

Moving so fast.

Wow. I just made a lap around the boat in about two seconds.

So when you get out of the water and you want to watch the salt off, all you have to do is open this secret compartment, all this pipe, Turn it to hot or cold.

Oh, I didn't have it on. Take a little shower.

Now.

I'm gonna go dry off on the trampoline.

Oops.

So mark and heike are cooking dinner for us. And I just want to re emphasize that everything on this boat. Is being powered by the batteries that are below deck, including the oven that was just used to cook whatever this beautiful dish is. And this induction cooktop.

Is this a coconut curry? Yeah. Did nate tell you that this is, like, one of my favorite things?

Yeah, he told me that you like thai food.

Yep. As if this day could not get any better. We are having a thai curry. I feel like I'm in a dream place. Number two is, I would say, the mallorcan version of korean barbecue. Mallorcan barbecue. It is so good.

Dinner was incredible. But I think what impressed me the most Was the fact that we left that grill on for an hour. Heat pulls so much power.

I also ate for a full hour.

I would have no appreciation for this experience. If we hadn't spent the last year living in a van that had solar panels on top. And the fact that the electrical broke on a weekly basis. And I had to get really intimately familiar with the whole system.

We are able to boil one kettle of water a day for coffee. If we have two kettles of coffee per day, and we don't drive anywhere, and we're only using solar, we're running the batteries down to 50% where they don't like to be. I didn't think it was possible to power this much stuff with solar. And not only are we powering all the appliances on the boat, but the boat is being driven with an electric drivetrain. There is no diesel on this boat. It's of a backup generator that doesn't get used. And check this out. After everything we've done today, we're still at 78 power.

First day on the sileon is complete. This channel has given us the opportunity. To do some really cool stuff the last five and a half years. And I just want to make it known that we are not taking a single moment of this for granted. I can feel us moving a tiny bit, which I kind of love. Can we buy one.

Morning? You're on a yacht. Don't waste a minute of it.

This is the difference between me and Nate in the mornings.

What's the matter?

Wow, the water's beautiful this morning. This is one of those things that if I lived on this boat full time, I'd like to think that I'd do every morning. But I know that's probably not reality. It's kind of like in the van when I thought I'd set up our chairs outside and just enjoy the view with a cup of coffee every morning. Done that once.

Wow.

Wow. This looks kind of like a green screen. So yesterday we gave you a surface level tour of the living quarters of the yacht. But this morning I want to nerd out for a few minutes and have Michael give us a technical tour to better understand what it takes to power a yacht that's completely self sufficient, using only the sun.

So it goes all the way across.

Yes. We have two times 14 batteries with a total capacity of 140 kilowatt hours. On the current boats, we start at 200 kilowatt hours.

So how many kilowatt hours are in a Tesla?

100.

So this is two Teslas.

Yes.

I'm trying to figure out how many of these we have in our van. Like maybe one.

We generate the power with the sun and store it in the batteries. And from the batteries it goes to either two big inverters that transform it to 230 volt AC for all household appliances. Also to recharge the tender and many other things. And right below you, another four batteries for the 24 volt system.

The entire floor that we're standing on right now is all batteries. £2,000 of batteries on this boat.

Wow, that's so organized.

So this is the water maker. This single unit produces about 100 liters per hour. We have here also the air conditioning. This here is the inverter. The big one has 50,000 watts.

Wow, 50K. So the inverter that is running this yacht is 25 times bigger than the inverter that we have in our van, which is another reason we don't have ac.

This one we use more or less for the night when we have very little consumption or when nobody is on board.

So to put that in perspective, that's a 3,000 watt inverter. Which is about the biggest you would see in a van. And that's like pretty much the backup inverter here on the boat. One other thing I should point out before leaving this area is that the motor on the Tinder is also electric, and it's powered by the house batteries on the boat. So the power for everything you see except for the Jet Ski is coming from the solar panels on the roof. But I'm told that soon they should have an electric jet ski. How did you know how to make your first boat?

I learned by doing. I made a lot of mistakes. I paid for my mistakes. And in the end, I found out what is the right way.

Ike, did you think it was. Was possible or did you think he was crazy? No, no, no. It couldn't. Couldn't work when I think it's not possible. Yeah, they have to do this together.

May I introduce the solar panels? We have some in the back, and we also have panels on the roof.

And how much on this boat?

30 of this kind.

Once again, one of these solar panels has peak power of 350 watts. We have three solar panels on top of our van that have peak power all together of 300 watts. So about 50 times more solar on this boat than we have on our van.

The motors are in the hull. I will show it to you.

Oh, under the bed.

Under the bed. So this is one of the electric motors. This has 160 kilowatts. This is actually our smallest model.

Okay. Vanna White.

All is, by the way, IP68. That means it can work fully submerged.

Okay, so now the remaining question is, what happens if it's cloudy?

We simply continue to run the air conditioning. Like today with open doors, we are not conserving energy or we can still go on cruising. If it's cloudy, of course, yes, the energy harvesting would be reduced, of course, but still the energy would come in and we can still refill our batteries or continue to cruise. And this is the, in my opinion, the main difference, main advantage compared to a sailing boat, that you can use the power that you harvested yesterday or last week, you can use it today or tomorrow.

What if you're in the middle of the ocean and it's cloudy for one week?

We start the generator. It's a diesel generator. Yes, I frankly admit, yes, we have diesel on board, but it's a kind of safety I would not forego.

Even after running the air conditioning all night. We've had the doors open all morning. The air conditioning is still running. The batteries are still at 55%. Okay. And that concludes our tour from the elon musk of the seas. You just loving life.

Tinker has lived on a boat her entire life, and she's 11 years old, and she still looks like a little puppy. I love her so much.

Okay, Captain, can I drive the boat?

Of course, sir.

You can teach me.

First. This is your steering wheel. We are in the auto mode. That means in that setting, you control the heading. That means we are now driving at 150 degrees. You can correct it by turning this wheel.

To put this in perspective, this boat is steered with a tiny knob, basically the size of the knob that you would change the volume of your radio with in your car. And this controls the speed?

Yes.

Can I speed up just a little bit? And that's all there is to it?

Yeah, that's it.

What are the thrusters that move the.

Boat sidewards, but only when the boat is stopped in a marina for maneuvering, we have our thrusters in the middle. That means we push the boat that way. To turn the boat, we have the two throttles. If you put them that way, it turns the boat immediately. You can try if you want to.

I can do this? Yes. All right, let's see what happens.

Okay, now you go to backwards, and you end up in a 360.

Let's go around again.

How'd you like Nate's driving?

Yes.

The rest of the crew on board is wondering what's happening right now. It all seems very simple.

It is simple, as we have no enemies around us.

Yes.

We're on open water.

Good job, Nate.

All right, we've just arrived at our second anchorage in a place called Magaluf Beach. It is absolutely stunning, just like everywhere else we've seen here in Mallorca. But thankfully, Michael took back over as the captain before we parked, because the last thing I want to do is run this boat into our neighbor's boat that looks like this. Although that would probably make for a pretty interesting YouTube video. I crashed the mega yacht into another mega yacht.

Lunch is beautiful, as usual.

This pink dots that you can see is aioli chipotle, and this brown color is chocolate.

Wow. That's amazing.

Can you taste the chocolate?

A little tiny bit. But if you hadn't told me, I don't think I would taste the chocolate. So good. Never had anything like it. Compliments to the chef.

Thank you.

This is pretty.

I'm still so impressed by how much space this yacht has, specifically, the outdoor seating options. They feel endless. I could sit here, here, or here, or Here. They probably shouldn't let me sit here. Here, here, here, here, or here. You've definitely seen here. If I want to watch the chef cook, I can sit here. And this is where I will be spending the rest of the afternoon.

So at night, the roof of the fly bridge can actually be lowered down by hydraulics.

So why are we putting this down?

Less windage. Nothing gets wet or dirty or salty.

And what set top fly bridges down. It almost makes the silent yacht look even more sleek. This is the first time I've been able to appreciate just how many solar panels are on the roof. I can't believe this is our last night on board. It's all gone by way too quickly.

You can still catch it. Come on.

Wow.

It's too early for this.

That's so pretty.

This is a historic moment. Kara's out of bed without coffee.

It's coming up so fast.

You've never seen a sunrise before. Wanted to make the most of our last morning. It sounded like a great idea.

Last night, it was my idea.

Here you go. I found coffee.

Thank you.

The morning is complete.

Thanks for getting up with me. It was weird.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. I think what surprised me most about this trip is how little we've had to sacrifice because all the power for the boat is coming from the sun. I knew coming into this that the yacht had air conditioning, but I honestly thought it was going to be one of those things where it was like, yeah, technically it has air conditioning, but we should probably only use it for a couple hours a day because we can only generate so much power. Or I thought when we got on board, there was going to be a big lecture about turning all the lights off so we didn't run out of power. But there was none of that. It was almost the opposite. I almost felt less guilty about leaving the lights on because the energy is just constantly being pulled back into the boat and it's free and it's renewable. My expectations for this trip, because I've been looking forward to it for so long, were up here. And that's a dangerous place for your expectations to be sometimes. But this trip did not disappoint. This yacht did not disappoint in any way.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Goodbye.

Ciao. Is there anything else you would like people to know about silent yacht do?

See silent yachts. You feel silent yachts, and you have to enjoy silent yachts.

We're doing our best here, but you just have to come to experience it.

This is the port side. This is the. I don't think I've ever known that place.

Are we embarrassing ourselves?

But you're going to bounce out. Yeah.

That's violent.

How's my hair?

What?

How's my driving? Yeah. That's why we did a circle.

It was not intentional.

You making your seasick? I'm good.