2-  HL1 do ETHL de Niterói

3 – Albatroz do Inst. Politecnico de Cabo Frio

4 – Costa do Sol, da equipe Solaris do IFF de Cabo Frio

5 – VDC1, da equipe Água- viva, do Inst. Náutico de Paraty

6 – Barco da Univali – Monohull

7 – Cajaíba da UFRJ

8 –  Copacabana, do Inst. Politecnico de Cabo Frio – Monohull

9 - Crcará do LabMecTurb da UFRJ – Monohull

10 – Peixe-Galo do Projeto Grael

11 – Búzios do Tecnaval da UFRJ

12 – Arpoador, do Pólo Náutico da UFRJ

13 - Mangue, do LAFAE da UFRJ

14- Gabriela, do LabMecTurb da UFRJ – Monohull

After a first stage in Niteroi and a second one in Cabo Frio, the Desafio Solar Brasil is about to return to its birthplace for the third and final stage of the year: the beautiful historical town of Paraty.

In this rather hectic end of year, it was difficult to find a date for the race in Paraty that would suit everyone. We had decided the race would take place on the long weekend of the 1st November, but unfortunately the second round of the presidential elections was also planned for that date! It is compulsory to vote in Brazil, especially for people working in the civil service – and all professors, technicians, University administration assistants etc are civil servants – so there was no way we could keep the race on that date.

On top of that, because it is the end of the academic year here in Brazil, it is exam season, and most of our participants are students in age of taking exams, whether they are university or school-leaving exams…

So, after much debating we decided on the date: the race will start on the 2nd November, with the technical inspection and the prologue, as well as swimming and navigation tests for the pilots. We noticed on the previous stages of the race this year, that most of the pilots do not know how to navigate – indeed for many of them, the race was their first opportunity to set foot in a boat! – so the technical committee decided to carry out a navigation test on the first day of the race, to force the pilots to work on their navigation skills.

The competition will go on over 3 days, with two races per day, starting at around 9am and finishing with the sun at around 6pm. On the 5th November, the last day, after the prize ceremony, there will be a show of the samba singer and musician Clarice Magalhães, on the main square in Paraty.

Thirteen teams, including two teams from the state of Santa Catarina and six from UFRJ, our own university, will be competing in Paraty (the full list of competitors will be published on the website shortly) and we wish good luck and a lot of fun to all of them!

The race will be hosted by the Clube Naval Charitas, a sailing club located on the Guanabara Bay, accross the bay from the centre of Rio.

To register, please fill in the application form below and send it to desafiosolar@gmail.com

The festival was organized by the recently created Museu do Mar (Museum of the Sea) of UFRJ especially to coincide with the Desafio Solar. The aim was  to bring educative and fun activities about alternative energy, recycling and naval engineering to children from the whole Paraty region.

Solar oven workshop

The kids were fetched at their schools by UFRJ buses every day and left to enjoy  the activities of the Festival on the main square of Paraty all day. Boat construction, solar oven workshop, construction of puppets with recycled material, dance, art, animation… and the sustainable house. Twenty workshops in total all given by students and professors from UFRJ. This was a great opportunity for both university students and school children to learn and have fun learning.

The sustainable house - made out of recycled plastic and powered by solar panels, the house also has a simple rainwater filtering system.

The Museum of the Sea aims to organize this kind of events at least three times a year in three different cities around Rio.

The Paraty canal during the race

Paraty turned out to be the ideal setting for the race. The pictures of our slenders boats sliding on deep-bue waters with mountains covered in jungle in the backdrop were so beautiful that even the bbc news website decided to post one, on the main page of its science and technology section!

The boats in Paraty-Mirim bay.

Paraty bay

See more pictures of the race by accessing our gallery here.

By Juliette Savin, Desafio Solar Brasil team

The decision to go to The Netherlands to take part in the Frisian Solar Challenge was a hasty one. We didn’t really think, we just accepted the challenge, built our boat, and went. Who, then, was to think that a year later we’d be organizing our very own solar boat race, the first Desafio Solar Brasil, and that it’d be a success?

From the Copacabana to the Desafio Solar Brasil 2009

When a colleague of ours came up with the idea to take part in the Frisian Solar Challenge, we all thought it was a bit of a crazy idea, but a nice one at that. None of us knew about photovoltaic energy and solar panels. We knew – we know – a lot about boats. At the Pólo Náutico, the naval architecture lab where we work, we produce about 25 boats per year. So building a boat has never scared us. But dealing with solar energy was another story.

So we went after people who knew about solar panels, electric systems and electric motors, recruited a couple designers, and here we were, ready to start working. We built our boat, a slender mono-hull, in a little more than three months. We named it after the most famous beach here in Rio de Janeiro: Copacabana.

Our boat surprised us. Despite the fact that we hadn’t tested the solar panels, had no idea what the insolation in The Netherlands is actually like, and had no experience navigating in canals, we did pretty well during the Frisian Solar Challenge. We even got a podium one day, and came fourth of our class, class A. But more importantly, we realized one thing: that using solar panels to produce energy to power small boats is not that complicated, and that it has huge potential in our country, Brazil, which gets on average 5,2 kWh/m2 of solar energy per day….

So we came back from The Netherlands with a new idea: to organize our own solar boat race. Our aim is to stimulate the use of solar panels to power small boats, here in Brazil, but also to bring together people who’re interested in photovoltaic energy and trigger new collaborations and new research.

Twelve teams took part in the Desafio Solar Brasil 2009

The first Desafio Solar Brasil (Solar Challenge Brazil) nearly started under the rain! It was pouring down in Paraty, just south of Rio de Janeiro, a few days before the start of the competition. The boats were already there and the teams had to shelter under tarpaulins to give the finishing touches to their boats. The production team was tearing their hair off trying to get everything done on time.

And finally we were all ready to start. To celebrate, a bright sunshine opened up and our prologue could take place under the sun. The next six days were to be full of emotions. Twelve teams, nine catamarans and three mono-hulls, fought fiercely for a place on the podium.

Because there are very few universities that offer naval engineering courses and few places that have facilities for building boats in Brazil, the Pólo Náutico had provided catamarans to the teams that couldn’t built their own hull – the majority of them. Designing the rest of the boat and building the electric system, however, was left up to them.

The six stages of the Desafio Solar Brasil took place in the bays around Paraty. This part of Brazil, of outstanding beauty, is called ‘the green coast’ because mountains covered with deep green Atlantic Rainforest fall straight into the sea. Paraty itself is little gem of a city; built in the sixteenth century, it has kept all its colonial charm and architecture.

After an intense week of competition, the boats were finally racing through the last stage, in the bay of Paraty. The technical committee and the judges of the competition declared Vento Sul, the boat from the Federal University of Santa Catarina first overall, in the catamaran class, followed by Peixe Galo of the Grael Institute, and Agua Viva, of the Instituto Nautico, from Paraty. There was a place for everyone on the podium in the mono-hull class. Carcará and Gabriela, two boats from the COPPE lab of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro stole the first and second places, and Ipanema, Copacabana’s cousin, named after the equally famous beach, but made out of carbon fiber, came third.

According to everyone who participated, the first Desafio Solar Brasil was a success. Despite a sometimes uncooperative weather, and a couple of technical problems (the transmitter that we bought to transmit the race live still hasn’t arrived!), everything went smoothly. A committee has already been created for the organization of the second Desafio Solar Brasil, and registration is open for the Desafio Solar Brasil 2010!

Venue: Terra Nova – Paraty

16.10.09
8h às 17h – technical inspection of the boats

17.10.09
8h às 12h – free time to make modifications if needed
13h às 17h – prologue
21h – cultural activity

18.10.09
9h30 – start of the first day
16h30 – prizes
21h – Launch party of the Desafio Solar Brasil with a show of Eduardo Krieger and the launch of the theme song of the event

19.10.09
9h30 – start of the second day
16h30 – prizes
21h – cultural activity

20.10.09
9h30 – start of the third day
16h30 – prizes
21h – cultural activity

21.10.09
9h30 – start of the fourth day
16h30 – prizes
21h – cultural activity

22.10.09
9h30 – lstart of the fifth day
16h30 – prizes
21h – cultural activity

23.10.09
9h30 – start of the sixth day
16h30 – prizes
17h15 – Round table – Desafio Solar Brasil : experiences, difficulties and solutions
21h – cultural

24.10.09
9h30 – start of final stage
16h30 – prizes
21h – closure show of the event with Ciranda Elétrica from Paraty and Ciranda de Tarituba

FESTA DO MAR E DO SOL – interactive workshops for children and teenagers

Venue: Main tent,  praça da Matriz/ Terra Nova
21 to 23 October
9h30 to 16h30