[mdorazio]

I love what they're doing, but these are reasons that don't hold up to scrutiny. gluing flexible panels to the deck would solve the windage problem and the boat is over 16,000 pounds laden... adding another ~80 pounds (less if LiFePO) of batteries would decrease their "run away" ability by about 0.5%. They pretty clearly ran into a challenge, chose the fun solution rather than the practical one, and ran with it. Which is great.

[shiroiushi]

Not only that, but how cutting-edge is the stuff they have? New solar panels have much better efficiency than panels made 20 years ago, for instance (both because of better technology, and because of the effects of aging). Newer battery technology has much higher energy density than old stuff.