Solar-powered boats made by Vietnamese farmers to serve tourists in September Local officials are pictured during a test tour on the solar-powered boat in Dong Thap Province, located in southern Vietnam, on May 31, 2015. Tuoi Tre The four farmers in a province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta who have made waves by creating a solar-powered boat will soon be able to add another feather to their caps as local authorities are slated to place an order for the product to serve tourists. Six solar-power boats, which can run at a speed of 20kph while making absolutely no engine noise and causing no pollution, must soon be ordered and put into use, Tran Thi Thai, deputy chairwoman of Dong Thap Province, requested Thursday. The purchases should be done urgently as the province needs the boats to showcase at a coming tourism festival scheduled for September, the official added. The Tram Chim National Park in Tam Nong District, Dong Thap Province was tasked with contacting the four farmer-creators of the boats to place the order, Thai said, speaking at a meeting to prepare plans for the Dong Thap Tourism Day. Thai said the money to buy the boats will be taken from the budget to develop Dong Thap tourism for the 2015-20 period. Four farmers in Tam Nong District, who used to be called ‘crazy men’, made headlines last week after their successful creation of a solar-powered boat that can run at a speed of 20kph and operate for three hours after the sunlight dies.   The men, Huynh Thien Liem, Nguyen Van Dung, Huynh Van Trang and Thai Van Hoang, said the idea to start making the boat came from the need to save money on fuel costs. The idea sounded so unrealistic that locals at first called them ‘four crazy men’ when they started working together to produce the solar-powered boat. But the ‘crazy men’ stunned everyone, and silenced all doubts, after a successful test run of the boat at Tram Chim National Park on May 31, which was witnessed by a delegation of state officials. Nguyen Quang Tuyen, vice director of the province’s Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, was impressed by the boat and told the farmers that he “will order some soon.” In technical terms the boat is simple, with just two panels to receive solar power, two batteries to store the power and an engine with five forward gears and two gears for reverse. The farmers are proud of the fact that their boat can operate without making any noise and pollution, and that all passengers can hear is the cascading sound of waves crashing on the hull. Using means of transportation that make no noise is very important to Tram Chim, as it does not stun wild birds into flying away from the national park. “Besides the solar-powered boats, we will use electric cars and other environmentally-friendly means of transportation to serve tourists during the tourism day,” said Le Hoang Long, the director of a tourism center at Tram Chim. “We will try to leave the slightest impact on the birds here.” TUOI TRE NEWS