Dubbed the Solar Impulse of the Seas, a multi-hulled catamaran that won the Jules Verne trophy for a non-stop sail around the world in 1994, has been bought for 500,000 euro (just over half a million dollars) and extended by 6 meters to 30.5m (100 feet). The aim: to create Energy Observer, the first-ever vessel to circumnavigate the world, powered solely by self-manufactured hydrogen together with renewable energies ? namely, the sun and the wind.

Energy Observer follows on from the green flight of Solar Impulse ? a plane that flew around the world in July 2016, using renewable energy.
“It accomplished) what everyone said was impossible,” said Jerome Delafosse, co-founder of the Energy Observer project.

Solar Impulse was seen as a prototype for the use of clean, non-carbon emitting energies on land and on sea: “The three record-breaking solo flights of André Borschberg from Nagoya to Hawaii and Bertrand Piccard from Hawaii to San Francisco and later New York to Seville give a clear message: everybody could use the same technologies on the ground to halve our world’s energy consumption, save natural resources and improve our quality of life,” according to the Solar Impulse website.

Inspired by the plane’s ground-breaking flight, Delafosse ? a naval officer, scuba diver and professional film maker ? and his partner, Victorien Erussard, plan for the $4.72 million boat to set off on its inaugural voyage in February 2017. It will sail for...