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Monday, June 14, 2010

Plastiki

Plastiki arrived in Apia a couple of days after us.

Plastiki is a catamaran made out of plastic bottles, sailing from San Francisco to Sydney to raise awareness of plastic in the world’s oceans. Plastiki is the brainchild of David De Rothschild and it is very evident when talking to him that he is extremely passionate about plastic issues!



This greenhouse setup was supposed to supply the crew with fresh veggies throughout the trip! Bliss!
However once they hit the tropics they found that itwas using way too much of ther fresh water and so it had to be abandoned.


The hull consists of thousands of recycled plastic bottles
(obviously after extensive testing to test the deterioration so that they don't sink... mildly concerning that it doesn't deteriorate, isn't it!!)


I could go on about it more, but to save those who aren’t interested (although how could you NOT be, with a bike-powered generator and a cabin made from cashew and bees wax!!) here is their website: http://www.theplastiki.com/

We had read that they left San Francisco around the time we left California and we were hoping to see them along the way. We met a couple of the crew and planned to take a look over the boat, but typically by the time we gave them space to do some repairs they had left the boat and left Apia to explore Samoa with family members who had flown in. So unfortunately we didn’t get to look over Plastiki – it would have been interesting.

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