Plastiki drifts closer

When you build a sea going catamaran out of tens of thousands of recycled plastic bottles with the object of sailing across the Pacific from the US to Australia, it is guaranteed that most experienced sailors will predict disaster.

But, perhaps as soon as this weekend (July 24-25), British adventurer David de Rothschild and his crew aboard the environmental awareness vessel Plastiki will sail into Sydney harbour having successfully crossed more than 12,000 nautical miles of ocean. It will be a time for many of the doubters to eat their words.

The 40 foot catamaran, which is made out of 12,500 recycled plastic bottles held together in a solid frame work, is not the fastest yacht to every cross the Pacific. In ideal conditions it can surge up to about 4 knots but most of the time it ambles along at a little over 2 knots. It is probably closer to drifting than sailing.

As the yacht has no keels, it goes where the wind pushes it and De Rothschild is hoping for some northerly winds to push it down toward Sydney. The vessel left Noumea about a week ago and it was estimated it could cover the 1000 or so nautical miles to Sydney in about 10 days – a speed that could see it enter the Sydney heads next weekend.

The aim of the voyage is to highlight the amount of plastic that finds its way into the world’s oceans after being dumped by lazy consumers on land. There are several eddies in the Pacific current where vast quantities of plastic bottles, wrapping and other muck gather together in almost indestructible floating piles.

Fish and other marine wildlife, particularly birds such as the albatross, die after ingesting brightly coloured bits of plastic.

The voyage of the Plastiki may not have gained much coverage in the mainstream media but it has been followed closely on the internet by millions of school children around the world.

Once the Plastiki gets within helicopter range of Sydney, its final few days of voyage is likely to get almost as much television coverage as teenage circumnavigator Jessica Watson.

Check out ThePlastiki.com for more details on the voyage.