The Atlantic has been rowed, powerboated and even swam across, but just 2 days ago, the first solar-powered crossing was made by Sun 21.

The achievement of course is not so much physical as technological. Sitting on this boat and pointing it in the right direction is about as tough as it gets - or so I imagine. The boat has 10 kilowatts of solar modules and is driven by 2 electric motors, of 8 kW each. Solar power is stored for overnight progress using batteries.

It doesn't even seem to be that expensive - about 700,000 Swiss Francs or $854,000 it is within the price range of a brand new sailing yacht, achieving the same speed without all the effort.

I was actually a bit surprised that they had to pack in 760 litres of fresh water to keep them going. Surely they could have tapped into some of that solar power for desalination?