MICHAEL KÖHLER WAS ANNOYED. He was cruising the world on a catamaran, seeing all kinds of technological leaps, yet struggled with a lack of power. ¶ “People have cellphones, iPads, cameras, whatever, but the energy-harvesting system on boats did not change at all in the past 20 years,” he says. “It forces people to go to the marinas every second day or run the generators.” ¶ So, he started noodling. For four years. He wanted to stay on the hook for weeks, running the air conditioning and all the systems. ¶ Finally, the ideas about which solar panels, electric motors, inverters and the like to use — and more importantly, he says, how to configure them — became the basis for the brand Silent-Yachts. The company offers 55-, 64- and…
