Team Tarka

The Southampton Solar Boat Racing Team, Tarka I, was founded in the 2008-2009 academic year by six students and two academic staff, who decided to develop the UK’s first entry into the US World Championship of intercollegiate Solar/Electric boating. This extremely challenging task was exacerbated by a limited budget compared to the many of the US competitors who also had over 10 years of experience behind them. However, the team pulled through and in the space of six weeks built their first entry, Tarka I.

The team did the UK proud, coming home with a string of awards and a very credible 10th place overall. The lessons learnt were vital and plans quickly emerged for a new, faster, more efficient boat for the 2010 championships.

This year we have a fresh team including four ship science students (the ‘naval architects’) one electronic and one electromechanical student making it a truly multi-disciplinary group. The naval architects have taking on the task of professionally designing, building and testing both a custom made hull and propeller. In order to save weight while offering maximum strength, last year’s wooden hull has been replaced by a custom-made carbon fibre composite material. Using both simulation and scale model tank testing, the shape of the hull has been designed to focus on performance in both the endurance and sprint races of the competition.

Significant research has also been undertaken to find the optimal battery and motor choices for the boat which should significantly raise the maximum output power during the sprint as well as the total system energy storage and efficiency leading to an improvement on last year’s endurance performance.