At the Seamen’s Club near Chennai Port, a rather unassuming boat, compact in size and simple in make (or at least at the first look), is docked. Unexpected rains and delayed permits stall the possibility of a quick cruise.
Characterised by a small solar panel, white rudders, an electrical battery and a cockpit, the energy-efficient boat named YALI is now on its way to Monaco, as I write this, where it will compete in the ninth edition of the prestigious Monaco Energy Boat Challenge: a first for India.
Interestingly, YALI was born in landlocked Coimbatore, a city with little to no interaction with water sports or marine transport, in the garage of Kumaraguru College of Technology. It is the first student-made energy-efficient boat that will represent the country in July. The team, comprising 14 engineering students across departments such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics and IT calls itself Sea Shakti.
