Earthrace comes to Sydney

Pete Bethune (right) and Earthrace crew member docked at Darling Harbour in Sydney.

Green Pages stepped on board the world record holding Earthrace while it was docked in Sydney. Captain and creator Pete Bethune built the vessel to run on 100 per cent on bio-diesel while also making its record breaking voyage carbon neutral. Bethune is hoping his trip around Australia and New Zealand will continue to raise awareness for the need for an alternative fuel solution.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to bio-fuels," says Bethune. "We can't grow enough to replace what we currently consume in fossil fuels but bio fuels can become an important part of our energy mix." He also ranked Australia as one of the worst offending nations when it comes to fossil fuel use per capita, along with the US, the UK, Singapore and Dubai.

The Earthrace first made its name when it set a new world record for a powerboat to circle the globe, completing the task in just 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes, beating the former record by over two weeks. "It enabled the boat to get a profile," says Bethune. Earthrace was built specifically to break the official UIM ‘Round the World Speed Record by a Powerboat' with the hope of calling attention to the viability of bio-diesel as an alternative fuel. The boat has been covered by a number of important media circuits worldwide.

Bethune began his pet project with very limited boating experience back in 2002. As a conservationist, "I only had about 100 miles at sea," he admits. But with research and an experienced team, Bethune engineered the energy efficient design to withstand the toughest conditions.

Crewed entirely by volunteers, the Earthrace has visited over 150 cities in over 40 countries, most of them have some of the highest transport emissions per capita. Australia, of course, is one of the worse. "No one questions the consumption of fuel here," the New Zealand native says of Australia's transport sector. He anticipates this will change in just a mere 10 years.

Eco principles

There are many features of the Earthrace that make it revolutionary in eco design.

- It runs on 100 % bio-diesel. Bio-diesel is proven to reduce Co2 emission by up 78 % compared to conventional diesel.
- The antifoul (underwater paint) is completely non-toxic. It is a wax product, rather than the iso-cyanate and heavy metal compounds favoured by most boat builders. This does, however, mean that the crew needs to clean the hull more often than conventional boats.
- It is the first boat in the world to use a hemp composite.
- Earthrace uses a number of recycled products in its construction, such as ice cream containers that were collected from local schools.
- Some lubricants were sourced from renewable sources and oil filters are able to be cleaned and re-used.

The Earthrace record breaking voyage was 100 % carbon neutral offset by downwithcarbon.org. Emissions were offset for:

• All travel made by the team from now until after the record attempt
• Crew incidentals - food packaging for example
• The delivery of all fuel to the refueling stops around the route, and the fuel itself

www.earthrace.net

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