No Ron, I have never thought of doing that. It would be worth doing a simple experiment to see if you can capture worthwhile energy. The extra panels would need to be connected in such a way that they don't effect the power of the main panel when they are not capturing much reflected energy. Perhaps they could be wired independently to just put some charge into the receiver battery only.

Yabbie1

John, have you considered also placing any panels under the open space for gathering the reflective energy off the water?

The point is, you need to consider the type, number (and configuration) of solar panels you are going to use BEFORE deciding on the scale of the model, otherwise the chances are you will not have a good fit on the available area and the performance will be poor.

In your case, I looked at the overhead photo and saw there were eight roughly square solar panels. My first thought was that 150mm x 150mm panels looked a good candidate for a model, hence the 600mm x 300mm roof area for the eight panels. But there are many different sizes available and if you can find a size that can be arrayed to fit your roof area nicely then go for it, but more likely you will need to vary the size of your model to get an optimum fit.

I see there is a 136mm x 110mm size, eight would need a roof area 544mm x 220mm, that might suit your model better. The other thing you will need to bear in mind is the electrical configuration. These panels are rated at 6v 0.33A each, so 8 of them could wired to give 12V at 1.3A or 6V at 2.66A in series/parallel (16W) for which you would get a suitable motor. Note that in this case, even if you had room for one more solar panel, it would be unusable without another one or three panels to pair it up with.

See:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32905776528.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.42.1

Your solar panel recommendation:
300mm =11.811 in
600mm =23.622 in

Rounding up 12” x 24

John, the Cygnus GM21
21ft length x 8 ft beam
6.55 metres x 2.44 meters

A 1”:1’ model is 21”x 8”

If the model is to represent the one pictured, the model will need to be much larger to receive a solar panel 12x24

1.5”:1’ will equal the 8” beam

The length would be 31.5” x 12”
Scratching my head about those numbers. 🤔

I hope you build that little fishing boat Ron, I found its story quite inspiring. I think the solar array would need to be something like 600mm x 300mm in size to make it worthwhile.

With enough interest there could be solar boat races and solar vs sailing boat races, where the solar boat would make up lost ground during the upwind part of the course. Different classes could be defined based on power generated or size of solar array etc.

Yabbie1

I began this journey with the idea of building a Cygnus GM21, but I had no line drawings for the vessel. I contacted Cygnus company owner, Mr. Pete Meredith, who responded by providing me with some drawings.

This morning he sent me drawings of another one of their vessels, a Cygnus GM19. I had not requested it but there was in my mail.

You just never know what you might receive when contacting a company asking permission to create an RC model of one of their boats.

I have a contact with a fella who creates 3D printed models. I may enter into the realm of doing a custom project. I already received permission to create it from Mr. Meredith.

To return to the topic...

A trimaran layout would be a logical one, with the central hull providing propulsion via a conventional motor and prop without the need for the complicated gearbox or twin motors of a catamaran. The outriggers could be attached by struts running underneath the overhead solar array. A 750mm x 300mm solar array of ten 150mm x 150mm solar panels would provide around 30 watts for a really good performance.

Yabbie1

Hi Ron yes I recognise the names, we often sail into the Hawksbury river, it is a National Park with free mooring and very nice, Jarusalem Bay where we moor up and go swimming.

We are having lunch at Cottage Point on the Hawksbury river in a week or so.
We take the dog and me for a walk on the beach and pass Mooney Mooney en route. Erina has a big air conditioned shopping Mall, you can go for the day in there!

Woy Woy means 'much water' and the photo is of the narrow inlet about 200 yards across of the water flowing into Brisbane Water, 64 square miles of sailing and fishing. Further down from us it narrows to 600 feet wide and there is a bridge called the Rip bridge and it is well named as the average amount of water with the tide over 5 hours is at maximum 200+ tons per second and it is 120 feet deep. I made the mistake once of going under it on a paddle board it is dangerous.

Everyone has a boat or yacht here and some of the larger motor boats are so ugly! Marinas galore. We are able to easily sail down the coast to Sydney Harbour which is an enormous area and go further in to explore the water ways. The picture is of the previous yacht with me at the helm about to sail under 'the bridge'

When sailing out to sea and the Hawksbury river we have to navigate the many sand banks through the channels and it takes about 25 minutes zig zagging through. The beaches here are near perfect no stones underfoot and sometimes completely deserted.
Gosford is an industrial town but I know the hospital well having had 2 visits one a stroke and the other the next year, an operation. I was treated very well, possibly because my daughter in law is a Consultant doctor there?

It is the middle of the night here as jetlag has stiked again, but going back to bed now.

To finish we have roll up solar panels on board and they top up the batteries a bit, but usually the boat batteries are put on charge the night before sailing.

Regards
Roy

Roy,
It's 23:50 for you.

But, for me ....
Most popular route Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) to Melbourne Airport (MEL)
Average flight time 26 hours 4 minutes
And depending on where in AUS, there is about 17 time zone difference, so one arrives 2 days after departing 😮
Not saying I won't, I just need to build up my airline tolerance first. 🤣

Dave B

PS Enjoy your visit. Model Railways and 40' Yachts sounds dreamy!

Hi DWB. Apparently the Brits are the top long haul flyers statistically. All to do with family connections all over the world. Being from an ISLAND you can see the last 3 letters are DNA, so already built into us and we do things as we like! And you exagerate, it was only 23 hours 50 minutes! 😀😀😀😀

Coming back is a bit longer. I arrived as always 'nackered' but our son collects me and all is well again. He has a very large model railway which is always growing, but mainly in complexity. Looks like sailing is on in his 40 foot yacht I used to be crew but now just a helpful passenger.

I hope you survive your blizzard but sometimes the predicted weather patterns fade early on. In the UK it rained for the first 2 months of the year, the changes in global weather is not always what is expected, but science says the more water vapour available over the Atlantic the worse the storms will be.

There are still skeptics about and no amount of bombs or fires will dry off the air!

Take care.
Roy