Environment

The good old days of merchant sailing are definitely back! With a cargo of wine and spirits, the 80 metre merchant ship ‘Anemos’ set sail from Le Havre mid-August to take them to New York. The shipping company Towt is planning to transport all kinds of goods that are not in such a hurry across the world's oceans with a fleet of 6 ships for the time being. The report. ----- We would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention once again to the coffee from Atinkana, which is also transported CO2-neutrally - it tastes excellent, we had the opportunity to taste it!

With the successful conclusion of Mission One, the Ocean Cleanup has begun preparations for their next system, System 002. The aim of this new design is to create an operational system to a full-scale cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. ----- The report with video.

Two races were sailed in fresh winds around 16kn this morning UTC at the JJ Giltinan Trophy on Sydney Harbour with 'C-Tech' (Alex Vallings NZL) and 'Smeg' (Michael Coxon AUS) finishing first. 'Honda Marine' with David Mcdiarmid NZL, leader after the first two heats, remained on top with the day ranks 2 and 6. Only the ranking list after 2 races was available at press deadline. The updates and the daily news will be posted during the day on the event website.

Pollution of the sea and water in general has become a major issue for the international sailing community during the past years. The youth squad of the YC Ascona has presented its role model project to bring about a more concerned attitude towards this major problem of humanity. They decided to abstain from using pet bottles during their sailing activities, a volume estimated at 64kg/year.
Here the video presentation of this project and the report (in Italian).

For more than 20 years, the Surfraider Foundation has been committed to the seas and beaches of the world. Once a year, members and volunteers organize beach, lake and river cleanings throughout Europe. Several tons of plastic are collected each. Here is the map showing the locations where cleanings will be organized this coming weekend. You are invited to participate in any of the initiatives without any formalities. The project website.

The Surfrider Foundation Europe program tackles the marine litter issue through education, citizen science and lobby, and everybody can be part of this initiative. On the coming weekends, Initiatives Oceanes organises beach-cleaning-actions all over the World, except North America, with an emphasis on Europe.
Here the map with action points, where everybody is invited to participate. The only Swiss location mentioned is Versoix/Lake Geneva.

The Surfrider Foundation Europe program tackles the marine litter issue through education, citizen science and lobby, and everybody can be part of this initiative. On the coming weekends, Initiatives Oceanes organises beach-cleaning-actions all over the World, except North America, with an emphasis on Europe.
Here the map with action points, where everybody is invited to participate. Watch the video.

Last week, the 'Race for Water Foundation' published its program for the next five years. With their Solar-Catamaran, they will round the globe in five legs to draw the attention on environmental problems in and off the Sea. The first leg will lead from France across the Atlantic Ocean to the Bermudas. Acting as an ambassador boat for the programme, “Race for Water” will serve as an educational platform, travelling laboratory and a working demonstration of Clean-tech innovations.
The report.

As 'World Sailing' (the former ISAF), responsible for the sport of sailing at Olympics on behalf of the IOC, failed to force the Rio Games Organisation Authorities to look for satisfactory actions to improve the disastrous water quality in Guanabara Bay, some athletes become active themselves. Dorian van Rijsselberghe, the defending Olympic Windsurfing Champion for Rio 2016 complained in his X-Mas 2015 blog about the very poor quality of the water in Guanabara Bay. As an ambassador of the Blog]Plastic Soup Foundation[/URL] , Dorian is pleased to announce that this foundation, in cooperation with WWF Brazil, are now doing something about it on the occasion of the forthcoming Miami Worldcup event. A glimmer of hope ......
The report.