Plastiki Sets Sail on Green, High-Tech Voyage

A boat built with 12,000 bottles just sailed from San Francisco to Sydney. The Plastiki is a boat designed to raise awareness of environmental issues including the massive amount of plastic bottles that are dumped in the world’s oceans. The Plastiki crew is using a number of high-tech tools while on the trip to help educate others. A crew of six sailors is aboard the 60-foot catamaran for the three-month trip.

All of the boats panels are made of PET, the same material used to make plastic bottles. The environmentally-friendly ways that were used to build the catamaran, include the use of natural and recyclable materials such as an adhesive made of cashew nuts and sugar. This method avoids the use of poisonous adhesives, resins, and finishes.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) is a major sponsor of the Plastiki and is providing several devices including an Elitebook 2530p and Probook 5310 that will be used to make charts, check weather, and post logs. Each crew member will be carrying an iPaq 900. The crew will also able to blog about their experiences, sending updates to Twitter, photos to Flickr, and communications to Mission Control.

The crew can make phone calls and access the Internet during the entire trip thanks to Inmarsat, which provides worldwide-satellite voice and Internet services to people and organizations far beyond the reach of mobile networks. The Plastiki has an Inmarsat transceiver mounted on the rear mast, which is also home to a vertical garden that provides fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Plastiki and its crew will generate all the power necessary to charge and run all of their gadgets. At the heart of the Plastiki’s electrical system are six large, 12-volt batteries similar to the ones found in cars. Two turbines mounted on the hull of the boat will generate electricity as water spins through them, while a third on the deck will use wind to generate electricity.

There are solar panels on the cabin’s roof to generate electricity during the daytime and a couple of bicycles so the crew can exercise and generate additional energy — pedaling produces enough energy to keep a notebook PC running. There is an emergency biodiesel engine for emergencies. The journey of the Plastiki can be followed on the websites ThePlastiki.com or Fisherman’s Wharf in the San Francisco Bay Area.

HP donated several Touchsmart PCs, which allow visitors to learn more about how the Plastiki was built and what can be done to keep plastic out of the world’s oceans. Furthermore, the New Yorker put together a video that shows more details of how the boat is constructed.