Waterway journey powered by sunlight
Phil Boyer passes through city on trip from Trenton to Port Severn on his unique solar-powered boat
Phil Boyer’s top priority is making it from Trenton to Georgian Bay in his hand-built, solar-powered boat via the Trent-Severn Waterway.
His second goal is to return home to Napanee the same way, but he is keenly aware Mother Nature will have the biggest say in the matter.
“It all depends if the conditions are right or not,” he said Thursday after briefly anchoring near the Bensfort Bridge to speak to The Examiner.
Boyer left his home on the Napanee River at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, piloting his 18-foot woodstrip style craft about 60 kilometres across the Bay of Quinte before entering the Trent-Severn in Trenton.
His journey Thursday saw him depart Hastings along the Trent River to Rice Lake, where he was unprotected from lashing winds, before entering the Otonabee River bound for Peterborough, where he was planning to say at Ashburnham Lock 20.
Boyer overnights at locks daily. The boat’s seats fold into a bed and he rolls down a material from the canopy to form walls. “It’s like a big tent.”
He built the hull of the boat
between 2014 and 2016 before installing the solar panel-covered canopy and other gear in early 2017.
The four panels can produce 860 watts, feeding two controllers that convert the electricity into the 24-volt batteries that power the five horsepower electric motor.
Days like Thursday are deceiving, Boyer said. It may be sunny, but a haze was preventing his solar production from being optimal.
When there is no sun, he can keep moving for about two days by lowering his speed to about 6 km/h – he was averaging about 7 km/h Thursday on a “power budget” as he battled both a headwind and the river current.
Those are big factors – he would be moving about 9 km/h in the exact same location if he was heading the other direction.
Under perfect conditions, spanning the waterway in his boat would take about nine days, but Tuesday’s rain has already cost Boyer 24 hours.
The forecast doesn’t look promising, either, so he expects to lose more time. “I always have to play it by ear.”
This is actually Boyer’s second epic journey in the boat – he took it for a “test ride” from Kingston to Ottawa to Perth on the Rideau Canal last year.
His research shows he was the first to do that. A predecessor completed the journey on a solarpowered pontoon boat, but plugged in along the way.
Boyer’s current solar-powered journey – which one waterway staff told The Examiner was also the first of its kind – was the next logical step.
“I believed the Trent-Severn Waterway would be a good challenge,” Boyer said, pointing out that the trip is linked to nostalgia as well – the avid canoer and kayaker grew up boating on family trips and at their Lake Muskoka cottage.
He enjoys building them, too. A former Nortel employee for 38 years who retired in May 2017, he has now built five watercraft.
Meeting and chatting with people along the way is what Boyer has enjoyed most. On Tuesday, he dined with folks on a yacht from Florida in Hastings.
The rain on the same day provided the lowlight. “It was coming in sideways on me. I was soaked. That wasn’t very nice.”
NOTE: Phil Boyer has a YouTube channel at https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rPLBjTPRVkY, which includes a video on how he constructed the craft.