Earthrace reports on Pacific Ocean Rubbish Dump

by Earthrace on 22 May 2008 Biofuelled 78 foot trimaran Earthrace is heading into Hawaii on Day 24 of her 24,000 nautical mile round the world record attempt. She is more than 1800 miles ahead of the 1998 world record pace set by Cable & Wireless and is less than hour away from her mid-Pacific refuelling stop.

Kiwi skipper Pete Bethune has degrees in Science and Engineering and he did his MBA on renewable energy. He is keen to convince the world that biofuel is a viable transport alternative, but not by chopping down forests for palm oil. Earthrace is using cutting edge fuel technology- a single fuel tank load could take Earthrace 24,000 km at 6 knots.

Today he reports on the Pacific Ocean rubbish dump - the North Pacific gyre.

'There’s a lot of crap in the water here', Adam says, as we dodge around another plastic bottle in the water. Our course is more like a drunken student weaving his way home after a bender, rather than a race boat in a straight line. It seems every hundred metres or so there’s another bit of crap in the water, and anything resembling a buoy (like a plastic bottle), we need to skirt around.

Prof Sharma in Scotland had warned us about this area. Actually so had Bob McDavitt, our forecaster back in New Zealand. It is a giant rubbish dump of plastic and polystyrene, that unbelievably, is the size of Texas, and we’re currently on the southern tip of it.

What actually happens is the current that passes down the West Coast of America picks up rubbish and debris along the Californian coast, and then drags them all the way out here, some thousand odd nautical miles away. The current here then drops under the surface, leaving behind all the rubbish. It joins the giant Californian rubbish dump that remains here year after year, and gradually increases in density as more crap drifts in.

'That’s appalling', Rob says in disgust. 'Why don’t they send a boat out to clean it up?' But it’s the size of Texas, and you’d need a thousand boats to do the job. It’s also a case of out of sight, out of mind. Few in California would know that their state has a giant rubbish tip in the middle of the Pacific, let alone be inclined to do anything about it.

'You’d need some Politicians with backbone to clean this area up', I offer. .'And how many of them do you know?'

'Hans Blix', Rob suggests?

'No. He was a UN inspector. But nice try.' I look around the crew and everyone looks slightly angry.

Even John, from San Diego', looks miffed. 'I had no idea this even existed', he says defensively.

We pass a large sheet of plastic, probably a tarpaulin, and shortly after a couple of polystyrene coffee cups. 'Probably Starbucks', I mutter at the lads. I don’t really like Starbucks. Actually I don’t like any of the big franchises. They put all the workers on minimum wage and siphon the profits offshore. And all their crap packaging ends up a thousand miles offshore. In my ocean!

Day 23
Last 24 hours: 535nm
Total Distance covered: 9428nm
Ahead of world record: 1608nm
Ave speed last 24 hours: 22.3kn
GPS Location: 25 53.012N, 145 32.813W
ETA Honolulu: Wed 11am (21st May)

Pete Bethunes sat phone report below