The University of Geneva is casting off in the world’s first boat to make an around-the-world journey on solar power alone.

The MS Turanor PlanetSolar navigated the globe with nothing but the sun and a deck covered in solar panels to propel it through the seas. That adventure ended about six months ago. After some maintenance and optimization, the ship is ready to take to the sea again with a new captain – Gerard d’Aboville.

From May to August, professor Martin Beniston, a climatologist will take measurements along the Gulf Stream ocean current.

In the first PlanetSolar mission, the boat traveled close to the equator and the mission was to prove the viability of today’s solar technology.

“The World tour was a demonstration of the potential of solar energy,” said Rachel Bros de Puechredon, director of marketing and communications for PlanetSolar. “The second life of the boat will show all the possible utilization of such a vessel to give an impulse to the solar navigation industries.”

The boat is also a great vessel for Beniston’s climate research. He was drawn to the PlanetSolar for his studies because it doesn’t emit any pollutants that would interfere with his work, Bros de Puechredon said.

With the solar technology proven and a new mission for the solar-powered boat, the PlanetSolar team aims to really demonstrate the power of solar for water propulsion.

“Now we’re going to the far north,” she said. “We’ll push back the limit of the technology.”

The PlanetSolar is expected to dock in Miami in early May and go north along the United States coast from there to New York and Boston, where it’s expected to spend time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolohy and Swissnex Boston.

“The dates are not completely fixed yet,” Bros de Puechredon said. “But we’ll be in New York in early June.”