Southampton Hydro Team Wins Long-Distance Race

In mid-April Solar Solve Marine were approached by Southampton Hydro Team, a group of students from the Universities of Southampton and Southampton Solent who were to participate in the HydroContest, a big international university competition that takes place annually in Saint Tropez, France.  The competition is designed to tackle maritime energy efficiency by promoting the cooperation in the advancement of technology to reduce emissions caused by shipping.  The concept of the race is simple…. carry more, faster, using less energy.  

The competition, the fifth one to be held, was scheduled for September and the Hydro team wanted to know, back in April, if Solar Solve would be willing to support or sponsor them.
After checking out their website at www.southamptonhydroteam.co.uk it was obvious to Solar Solve Marine’s directors that this commendable project was a noble cause and worthy of support, and agreed to becoming an official sponsor for 2018.

The Southampton Hydro Team designed, built and raced two innovative composite-made energy efficient boats and brought with them never-before-seen technology to this year’s international HydroContest competition, organised by the Hydros Foundation.

At the time in April, John Lightfoot MBE, Solar Solve’s chairman commented, “As soon as we were contacted I had a positive feeling about this project.  However, when I read the sentence in the email, ‘….to support a team of young engineering students that are committed to the environment, ocean protection and building innovative composite boats (one with carbon fibre foils) would probably be of interest…’, I was hooked.  My personal interest in this project is two-fold.  As a professional marine engineer I try to support and encourage young people to enter the profession and I was especially pleased to see that Southampton Hydro Teams usually include female engineers and students. The second coincidence is that the innovative energy efficiency objectives of the project fall in line with one of the major benefits of using our SOLASOLV® brand of products”.

The competition took place from 2nd to 9th September 2018 when 28 teams from 15 countries competed against each other to win one of the 9 coveted prizes.  As one of their sponsors Solar Solve is delighted to report that the Southampton Hydro Team was successful in winning the long distance race.  It seems that all of their dedication, hard work and energy paid off when it truly mattered and Solar Solve would like to congratulate the team on their success.