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Plastiki ready to set sail
  
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Plastic catamaran will sail from San Francisco to Sydney, stopping at pacific garbage patch
By Ryan White
After nearly four years of designing, experimenting, re-engineering and tinkering, David de Rothschild, speaking at a press conference last week at Fort Baker, said his much-anticipated Plastiki catamaran is finally ready to set sail on its maiden voyage from San Francisco to Sydney in the coming weeks.
The only thing holding back the boat and crew now, according to Plastiki’s skipper, Jo Royle, is the perfect weather window that will allow the experimental craft, made from 12,500 post-consumer plastic bottles, to head southwest across the Pacific to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the trip’s first destination.
On Feb. 26, a steady stream of visitors milled around Fort Baker’s Horseshoe Cove to get a better look at the plastic-bottle boat, which was moored just offshore in the cove’s small harbor.
De Rothschild, 31, English-born heir to the legendary European Rothschild banking family, said he was inspired to take up the Plastiki project after reading a United Nations report several years ago outlining the deteriorating conditions of the world’s oceans.
De Rothschild’s idea was to take used plastic bottles, a ubiquitous form of human waste, and use them as the main ingredient behind a seaworthy sailboat capable of safely ferrying him and a half-dozen or so crewmembers across the ocean.
Assuming the boat’s design endures the arduous crossing, the crew will keep landbound followers updated through a series of video reports, onboard interviews, satellite tracking, and blog and Twitter updates documenting the impacts of pollution on the world’s largest ocean. Children and young adults are prime targets for the education-oriented journey, which can be monitored via the Plastiki’s website.
But just building the experimental boat, carried out in a large hangar at San Francisco’s Pier 31, was far from easy. A host of materials were tried and failed, a succession of techniques trotted out and then abandoned, before the rotating design team finally came up with a workable solution for crafting 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles into the shape of two large hulls making up the catamaran.
“This is about innovation,” de Rothschild said. “This is about solutions.”
Virtually every material on the ship is made from some form of recycled or sustainable material. The masts were made from post-consumer aluminum, while the glue holding the boat together was engineered from a combination of sugar and cashew nuts. Other progressive features on board include a “biodigestible” composting toilet, hanging vegetable garden, and wind, solar and stationary bicycle-based energy systems.
When a reporter asked how much the experimental boat cost him to build last week, de Rothschild demurred. “More than I’d like, less than it could,” he said.
The Plastiki, which features a host of untried innovations and materials, isn’t the most elegant of vessels, but then again aesthetics were never the point. What looks much like a geodesic dome sits between the catamaran’s two hulls and will provide shelter and living space for the crew during the long ocean passages — the itinerary includes Hawaii, Midway, Bikini Atoll, Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, Fiji and, eventually, Sydney.
De Rothschild’s journey is in some ways a 21st century high-tech reprise of Thor Heyerdahl’s legendary 1947 expedition across the Pacific aboard the Kon-Tiki raft. One of Heyerdahl’s goals was to show the South Americans could have settled what later came to be known as the French Polynesian islands. Olav Heyerdahl, the grandson of Thor, will be among the crew to cross the Pacific aboard the Plastiki with de Rothschild.
Since the voyage’s departure is so weather dependent, no definite date has been set as of yet. Royle, a 27-year-old female skipper from the U.K. who has already sailed as far north as Iceland and as far south as Antarctica, said the crew would make an announcement before they left, and she urged other boats to show up and see the Plastiki out the Golden Gate.
Speaking to a room full of reporters at the press conference at Cavallo Lodge last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a friend of de Rothschild’s who was decked out in Plastiki-emblazoned sweatshirt, pants and gaudily colored shoes for the event, said, “The boat is pretty spectacular,” before adding, “I just hope this works.”
To follow the Plastiki’s journey, visit theplastiki.com.
Contact Ryan White at rwhite@marinscope.com.
The only thing holding back the boat and crew now, according to Plastiki’s skipper, Jo Royle, is the perfect weather window that will allow the experimental craft, made from 12,500 post-consumer plastic bottles, to head southwest across the Pacific to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the trip’s first destination.
On Feb. 26, a steady stream of visitors milled around Fort Baker’s Horseshoe Cove to get a better look at the plastic-bottle boat, which was moored just offshore in the cove’s small harbor.
De Rothschild, 31, English-born heir to the legendary European Rothschild banking family, said he was inspired to take up the Plastiki project after reading a United Nations report several years ago outlining the deteriorating conditions of the world’s oceans.
De Rothschild’s idea was to take used plastic bottles, a ubiquitous form of human waste, and use them as the main ingredient behind a seaworthy sailboat capable of safely ferrying him and a half-dozen or so crewmembers across the ocean.
Assuming the boat’s design endures the arduous crossing, the crew will keep landbound followers updated through a series of video reports, onboard interviews, satellite tracking, and blog and Twitter updates documenting the impacts of pollution on the world’s largest ocean. Children and young adults are prime targets for the education-oriented journey, which can be monitored via the Plastiki’s website.
But just building the experimental boat, carried out in a large hangar at San Francisco’s Pier 31, was far from easy. A host of materials were tried and failed, a succession of techniques trotted out and then abandoned, before the rotating design team finally came up with a workable solution for crafting 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles into the shape of two large hulls making up the catamaran.
“This is about innovation,” de Rothschild said. “This is about solutions.”
Virtually every material on the ship is made from some form of recycled or sustainable material. The masts were made from post-consumer aluminum, while the glue holding the boat together was engineered from a combination of sugar and cashew nuts. Other progressive features on board include a “biodigestible” composting toilet, hanging vegetable garden, and wind, solar and stationary bicycle-based energy systems.
When a reporter asked how much the experimental boat cost him to build last week, de Rothschild demurred. “More than I’d like, less than it could,” he said.
The Plastiki, which features a host of untried innovations and materials, isn’t the most elegant of vessels, but then again aesthetics were never the point. What looks much like a geodesic dome sits between the catamaran’s two hulls and will provide shelter and living space for the crew during the long ocean passages — the itinerary includes Hawaii, Midway, Bikini Atoll, Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, Fiji and, eventually, Sydney.
De Rothschild’s journey is in some ways a 21st century high-tech reprise of Thor Heyerdahl’s legendary 1947 expedition across the Pacific aboard the Kon-Tiki raft. One of Heyerdahl’s goals was to show the South Americans could have settled what later came to be known as the French Polynesian islands. Olav Heyerdahl, the grandson of Thor, will be among the crew to cross the Pacific aboard the Plastiki with de Rothschild.
Since the voyage’s departure is so weather dependent, no definite date has been set as of yet. Royle, a 27-year-old female skipper from the U.K. who has already sailed as far north as Iceland and as far south as Antarctica, said the crew would make an announcement before they left, and she urged other boats to show up and see the Plastiki out the Golden Gate.
Speaking to a room full of reporters at the press conference at Cavallo Lodge last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a friend of de Rothschild’s who was decked out in Plastiki-emblazoned sweatshirt, pants and gaudily colored shoes for the event, said, “The boat is pretty spectacular,” before adding, “I just hope this works.”
To follow the Plastiki’s journey, visit theplastiki.com.
Contact Ryan White at rwhite@marinscope.com.
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