Swiss businessman Marco Simeoni’s passion for sailing has led him to travel the world’s oceans for years. During his travels, he became aware of the strong impact that plastics have on aquatic life, since currently between 5% and 10% of the world’s plastic production ends up in the oceans and there is already one kilo of plastic for every five fish. Raised aware of this problem, he decided to create the Race for Water Foundation, which works to conserve the oceans against pollution by visible plastics and microplastics, small particles that have a strong impact on marine ecosystems. His latest venture is a five-year expedition that will travel the world, raising awareness of the importance of conserving the seas and informing about the risks and consequences of excessive exploitation.
This voyage will be made aboard a ship that uses only solar energy and that departed last week from Lorient (France) and that the foundation makes available to the scientific community for studies. The University of Vigo will be involved in this initiative through the European project Ephemare, coordinated by Professor Ricardo Beiras, with the aim of quantitatively and scientifically assessing the risks and consequences that microplastics have on marine organisms. Several of the 30 scientists from ten countries that are part of Ephemare will participate in different phases of the Race for Water, including the researcher from the Ecotox group, Raimundo Blanco. In July, the solar ship will be embarked for eight days on a stage that will leave from the Bermuda Islands.
Blanco explains that participating in the Race for Water Odyssey 2017 represents a triple opportunity. On the one hand, it allows “to reintroduce into society the knowledge acquired about the problem of microplastics; on the other, to provide scientific support to the Race for Water Foundation’s awareness campaign and, finally, to carry out a study in a very important area greatly affected by plastic pollution and thus collect scientific data to study microplastics and explain their behavior”.
The contributions from Vigo to this experience
The Ephemare researcher explains that tasks will be carried out on board this ship in two different lines. On the one hand, they will work in the field of dissemination by collaborating with members of the Race for Water foundation in a workshop with social action groups on the island of Bermuda. Regarding the scientific work, it includes two objectives as Blanco explains, “the first is to quantify and characterize the microplastics of oceanic origin existing in the abiotic and biotic environment and the second is to isolate the necessary amount of these to be able to carry out ecotoxicity tests in the laboratory”. For this, according to the researcher, two locations were selected, one on the east coast (Well Bay) and the other on the west coast (Somerset Long Bay) in which samples of sand on the beach, sediments at a depth of 10 meters, several species of invertebrates such as mollusks, crustaceans and echinoderms, vertebrates and samples of waters in the open sea will be collected.
A cutting-edge ship
Throughout these five years around the world’s seas, the Race for Water project will be based on the world’s largest solar boat, a solar trimaran that was, in its day, the first of its kind to circumnavigate the globe using only this type of energy. It is 35 meters long, 23 meters wide and 6.3 meters high, with an average speed of 5 knots up to a maximum of 9. The ship combines solar energy captured by a surface area of 500 m2 of solar panels with hydrogen and wind. The energy produced by the panels is used for propulsion and the surplus is stored for the night, for which it has four lithium batteries that release 754 KWh. If production is greater than necessary, it can also be used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of seawater and store it in the 25 bottles it has, which can return 2800 kWh of electricity. In addition, in favorable conditions, a 20 m2 kite can be deployed, allowing it to reach a speed of up to 10 knots. In this way, navigation is silent and does not produce any type of emission into the environment that could interfere with scientific work. It also has two laboratories, one wet and one dry, for the development of basic tasks.
The trimaran is the world’s largest solar-powered ship
Hans Pater Arp (Weathermic Project), Ricardo Beiras, Frederic Sciacca
(Race for Water Foundation), Raimundo Blanco (Ephemare) e Kim va Arkel (RFWF)
Fonte DUVI
