Solar Impulse 2: A Worldwide Voyage in the AIr

Pwo Navigator, Nainoa Thompson reflected, “So you have these two voyaging canoes that are out on the immensity of the oceans. And sometimes, in the kind of quietness when fear creeps in, you know, is the voyage too big, is it too hard to do, is it too much risk, when you have this voyage fly here, you find out you’re not by yourself that there’s other voyagers around the world. These two pilots have got to be one of a handful of the great explorers of our time.”

fter five days and nights and a prolonged stay in Nagoya, Japan due to unfavorable weather, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard successfully landed Solar Impulse 2 in Honolulu, Oʻahu. This is the longest leg on their journey around the world, and a great feat for their overall mission of influencing a more sustainable future.

Project initiator, chairman, and pilot of Solar Impulse, Bertrand Piccard explained, “Solar Impulse is an airplane that flies day and night with unlimited endurance only on solar power, that means with no fuel. We want to demonstrate that we can achieve incredible things with renewable energy, with clean technology and try to have more people using this clean technology to have a better quality of life and preservation of the environment. So when we use it on the plane, you know, it’s the ultimate, ultimate application. People would say wow, if they can do it in the air, then they could also do it on the ground.”

And it can be done on the ocean as well!

“I’m both humbled and amazed that they know of Hōkūleʻa, they know of Hikianalia, they know about the worldwide voyage, they want to connect,” said Thompson.

So Thompson invited the Solar Impulse crew to visit their solar-powered vessel, Hikianalia.

Piccard said, “I like to meet people who have a real human value and respect for the earth, respect for life, Nainoa is one of these people, you know, somebody who spends his life for good. I am really inspired to visit this team, to see the boat, to feel their spirits and to see the dedication to a force for good, trying to improve the quality of life of the people that they meet and educate. I have profound respect for this.”
Thompson explained, “Where we come to common ground, with these people from halfway around the planet, is that the earth is worth it, we need to keep it clean, and it’s really these kinds of um voyages and explorations that helps us be inspired.”

Piccard said, “If you want to do something for a quality life of others, if you want to make a big project, if you want to inspire people, if you want to push the limits of the impossible further, it needs a lot of perseverance. Sometimes it’s exhausting, but each time I’m exhausted or each time I feel that my team is discouraged, I remind to them and to me that if what we are doing was easy, somebody else would have done it already.“

Thompson said, “We need to collect all the voyagers on the earth, to help the canoes, with their movement and the canoes help them with theirs. Their story is similar to ours but when you put them two together, they’re both more powerful.”