We only have one world. The June-July-August (JJA) season for 2023 was the warmest on record globally, with an average temperature of 16.77°C, 0.66°C above average. There is more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point in the past 800,000 years. While every year between 8 - 13 million tons of plastic is dumped in the sea - that’s a rubbish truck every single minute of every single day – so by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish. This plastic is killing marine-life and entering our food-chain.
Team Britannia understands the importance of minimising the impact of breaking the round the world record, so we are using a number of technologies that will make the record the greenest ever. We have used recycled aluminium, wherever possible to build our vessel and have used a unique hull design, which will cut fuel consumption by 30 per cent.
Adding to this, our engines will be running on a revolutionary eco-fuel that combines seawater, hydrogen and diesel and has been developed by a British company. The new fuel dramatically cuts particulate matter (PM), NOx and other pollutants. It can be used in any diesel engine with only relatively minor modifications and would allow the shipping industry to meet the IMO’s 2030 goals today. The developers believe that within 12 months, the fuel could hit the IMO’s 2050 goals which they are currently testing.
Any residual pollution will then be offset through a programme of planting seagrass. Seagrass captures carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests and accounts for between 10-18 per cent of total ocean carbon storage despite only covering less than 0.1 per cent of the seafloor.
During the record attempt our onboard laboratory will take water samples every hour, matching the samples to the specific location. Temperature and plastic content will be measured and beamed from the boat to an open-source website to build a unique picture of the micro-plastics that are polluting our oceans.