NZ Boat Earthrace takes new world record for circumnavigation

This Friday at 14:24 CET when crossing the finishing line in Sagunto, Spain New Zealand’s Eco-Diesel boat “Earthrace” set a new world record for circumnavigation with powerboats.

With the new record time of 60 days, 23h:49min skipper Pete Bethune and his crew have shaved off almost 14 days from the previous record set by the British “Cable & Wireless” in 1998. After the failed first attempt to break the record last year when they had to abandon the run due to structural damages to the boat’s hull, this year’s attempt was not plagued with similar issues.

Congratulations Pete for your endurance and persistence on achieving this target. We were all “crossing fingers” that you will have more luck this year. After having spent five days in heavy weather on Earthrace last year, we know what it means to be at sea for more than sixty days on that boat.

Good luck with your tour and run home to NZ.

The cause for the race – and that’s also how it was marketed – was to raise awareness on ecological friendly and renewable fuels and to showcasing other environmentally friendly technologies for boats. Nevertheless, the circumnavigation record for sail boats (zero emissions of CO2) set by Orange II in 2005 currently stands at 50 days, 16h:20min.

While we can’t rely on sailing boats alone there are some interesting attempts underway for circumnavigations with engine driven boat creating their energy with photo-voltaics and other zero emission approaches – one of the strongest contenders from Neuchatel, Switzerland planning to be ready for the record attempt in 2009/2010.

More information:

Official Earthrace web site
Information on the World Solar Navigation challenge
Our posts on spending 5 days on Earthrace

Related Posts:

---

1. Earthrace – the last run on its 2007 record attempt (Part 2)


Earlier this year – in May – we had a chance to participate for a few days on the attempt of “Earthrace” to break the UIM world record for circumnavigation with their bio-diesel boat.
(this post a continuation of the post Earthrace – the last run on its 2007 record attempt (Part 1) )

We have (together with another company) sponsored their last leg on their attempt to break the world record during 2007. On their “web site” there is now information that their second run to break the record will commence in March 2008 from Valencia, Spain. Good luck with that…

While a lot could be said about the 4-5 days leg from Port Suez to Valencia we participated – one thing’s for sure – it was quite an experience.

We have not taken many images after heading out into the Mediterranean, but some of the pictures from the Suez Canal came out quite well…

continue reading…

---

2. Earthrace – the last run on its 2007 record attempt (Part 1)


There was a lot of press coverage lately on the “Earthrace” attempt to break the world record of circumnavigation for power boats with a bio-diesel boat.

It happens to be that we have (together with another company) sponsored their last leg on their attempt to break the world record. And we have just learn that “Richard Branson” now is considering to “sponsor another attempt” for the world record next year, so we thought we might still share some of our impressions and images of our time on-board during the run from Egypt to Spain…

continue reading…

---

3. Europe: Skiing season starts with record snow


After a few seasons with very little snow this skiing season in Europe is starting with new records of snow heights.

The last days of massive snow falls throughout Europe – it was even snowing on some Spanish islands normally considered by many as a warm winter refuge – have brought amounts of snow to Austrian, German, Swiss and French resorts some of them have not seen for the whole season the last years and never been seen in November before.

While the US and Canada the last years where lucky with record snow heights, in Europe many resorts experienced “droughts” to the extend that in Switzerland the last two winters fire warnings had to be issues to prevent forest fires.

Lets hope this year will be different and it looks like it might be.

And people are desperate to go…

continue reading…

---

4. Global Warming: 2007 expected to be hottest year on record


Climate-change experts at the UK Met Office predict that 2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, hotter than the current record set in 1998. The forecast points to the El Niño already established in the Pacific, that is expected to persist through the first months of 2007. Together with global warming due to fossil fuels this provides a high potential for record temperatures during 2007…

Continue reading…