Earthrace is about more than setting an around-the-world speed record – we’re doing it to both promote renewable fuels and inspire people to lead greener lives. The original concept was to promote oil alternatives, but my crew is all volunteers and since they tend to be very green, eco-conscious people, they’ve all influenced the project and other eco angles have been slung in the mix.
We now run Earthrace as a carbon-neutral project; we monitor our CO2 emissions and purchase carbon credits to offset it, we have recycling on the boat, and my crew and I eat organic foods whenever we can. At the end of the month, everyone fills out a spreadsheet documenting any travel they’ve done – by car, bus, train, or plane – as well as any fuel purchased for ground vehicles, their computer usage and if they’ve stay in a hotel. We then purchase carbon credits to balance it.
I’ve become a really strong advocate for carbon credits. While the system in its current form is not perfect, it’s a lot better than doing nothing and it does start to recognize there is a cost to burning all these fossil fuels.
I used to work for the oil industry as an oil exploration engineer for Schlumberger, a very high technology oil exploration company. When I first became interested in renewable fuels, it was because I knew about the limited oil resource that is left. I worked in the industry in the early 90s, and in those days, the numbers were already well known. We knew there was about 55 years of oil left and maybe about 70 to 80 years of gas left.
Fifteen years on, it’s exactly the same, except it’s down to 40 years now, with about a trillion barrels left. Everyone is that industry knows the numbers, but you don’t talk about it – you’ve got a job to do and you just get on with it. When I left the industry, I had a growing unease about it being a finite resource.
Most people have no idea how much it will affect them when oil does run out. All our roads, our electronics, our plastics are all made from oil; it’s in every niche of our lives these days and when oil runs out, there’s going to be a major shift in our daily lives. Transportation is going to be the biggest one because there’s no easy alternative. Bio-diesel is a great fuel, but we simply can’t grow enough to replace what we currently consume in fossil fuels. Having said that, it’s important we don’t leave developing an alternative until the last minute. We need to start looking at alternatives now, to at least help cushion the fall.
Small Boat, Big Waves
The Earthrace boat is called a wave-piercer. It’s designed to go through waves, rather than over top of them like a conventional boat. It’s much faster in rough seas and that’s key for us getting the record.
The “green” elements of the boat are that it’s run on biodiesel and we use a hemp-composite wax under the waterline to prevent sea creatures from latching on (most boats use anti-foul, which is heavy metal-based product and is quite toxic).
In flat water, it’s nothing special. But you put it in big waves and it blows your mind how cool this boat is. The first time I sliced through a wave, I shat my pants, mate! It was really scary. As you go into the wave, you feel this wave of energy come through the boat and the cabin goes dark. You’re stuck inside this wave, and you see eddies and currents, and bits of seaweed and occasionally the odd fishing net that’s sweeping over the top of you. Then, suddenly the cabin lights up as you come out the other side of the wave – and then you crash into the next one.
It’s a bombardment of your senses – it’s enormously loud because you’ve got 1080 horsepower roaring behind you, the sound of these huge waves crashing over the top of you, and it’s going light and dark all the time. I originally thought it would really smooth, like a hot knife through butter, but it’s nothing like that – it’s really brutal. But, man, it’s impressive when you see five- or eight- or ten-meter waves coming towards you and you just go slicing through them.
If At First You Don't Succeed...
To get around the globe in record time, it’s never going to go exactly as planned. You’re always going to have some dramas along the way, but on our first try last year, we certainly had more than our fair share.
On the first leg, we had these carbon propellers that started to disintegrate and we had to replace them. On the second leg, we collided with an unlit fishing boat – one man was lost at sea and another one nearly died. My crew and I got detained in a military base in Guatemala for nine days while it went before the courts. In the end, it was thrown out of court, because the accident was largely attributed to them having no light on and being asleep at the time.
It took us a week to repair the boat from all the damage we sustained in that accident, and then on the leg to Palau, a piston blew. Across the Indian Ocean, we had three and a half days of storms and then another one on our way between the Suez Canal and Malaga in Spain. On that last leg, we sustained some damage to the hull that would have taken us a full three days to repair, but we only had one day of slack time left if we were going to break the record. At that stage, we decided to call the record attempt a write-off. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and everyone on the boat was shattered.
So, I’m trying again. I guess you could say it’s unfinished business. When you look at the hundreds and hundreds of people who helped out, it makes you pretty determined to do what you set out to do. I think we let ourselves down on that first record run – there were many areas where we were under-prepared and it showed. I’m pretty determined to see it through, but it’s funny – I’m the one left from that first boat crew… no one else wants to come do it again!
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Wanna ride in Earthrace as it goes for gold? You can pay to come along and be the fifth crew member on one leg of the race - check out Earthrace.net [2]
If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy Colin Angus: Around The World By Human Power [3]
