become even more relevant. Falkor has already mapped more than a million square kilometres of sea floor and is now tasked with doubling that. Schmidt Ocean’s data and imagery also contributes to the global mapping effort established by the Nippon Foundation, and the 30 x 30 campaign, which calls for at least 30 per cent of the oceans to be protected from mining and fishing, by 2030. ‘Our aim is to support these initiatives with our science and help policymakers to understand what’s there,’ Dr Wiener says. Schmidt Ocean is also working hard to raise public awareness. ‘My goal is to interest people who don’t think or know about the deep sea,’ Dr Wiener says. ‘It’s important precisely because it isn’t in people’s purview.’ To help spread the message, Schmidt Ocean has an artist in residence programme. More than 30 artists, sculptors and musicians have already joined Falkor’s expeditions, helping to tell the story in ways that transcend language and cultural boundaries, with a reach that goes far beyond the scientific community.
What role can sailors play in this ambitious new wave of ocean
Top: Schmidt Ocean used multi-beam mapping to discover this 500m tall
detached reef in the Great Barrier Reef – the first reef found there in 120 years Middle: Schmidt Ocean also discovered new fields of hydrothermal vents that drive entire ecosystems of microbes and animals. Lower: on a transatlantic crossing last August, 11th Hour Racing Team sampled seawater 24/7 and relayed high-quality oceanographic data ashore in real time
science? 11th Hour Racing Team supports it by inspiring people to find out more about the ocean. The team’s current focus is a four-year campaign to win The Ocean Race, which starts in 2022. This involves designing, building and racing a next-generation Imoca 60 while actively advocating for ocean health, running an international outreach programme, influencing marine industry supply chains, and putting sustainability at the heart of all of the team’s operations on land and sea. It’s a complex undertaking that requires a dedicated sustainability team led by Damian Foxall, a hugely experienced professional offshore racer himself. ‘I feel lucky that this job allows me to step outside the sailing world and meet people who are working at the cutting edge of ocean science,’ he says. While a large part of Foxall’s time is spent on things like hi-tech boatbuilding innovation and life cycle assessment of Imoca parts – more about that in a forthcoming article – he also facilitates legacy grants that fund ocean science projects. In addition, he manages an outreach programme that brings the team’s sailors together with scientists, helping the sailors to be effective advocates for key ocean health issues such as marine protected areas, acidification, biodiversity and plastics pollution before, during and after the race. There is evidence that environmental advocacy at The Ocean Race stopovers has prompted real action, Foxall says, such as New Zealand joining the Clean Seas pledge and a plastic-free campaign at V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa.
Most of the team’s legacy grants will be awarded at The Ocean Race stopovers but several are already under way in France, where their new boat is in build. These include support for education programmes at Station Marine Concarneau, the world’s oldest marine research facility, and Explore, a marine science educator and ideas incubator co-founded by the ocean sailor Roland Jourdain. On a practical level, The Ocean Race boats and crews aren’t just raising awareness of ocean science.
They’re also conducting it. As Wendy Schmidt, the co-founder of 11th Hour Racing and Schmidt Ocean Institute explained to attendees at The Ocean Race Summit, the entire fleet is involved in an important and unique science initiative. ‘The teams will continue to collect data from ocean waters never measured before in any way,’ she says. ‘And that’s important. Our knowledge today of sea surface temperature relies on a single measurement point derived from an area twice the size of Portugal. The observations made from our boats tracking across the globe supply a missing link for scientists, helping build on their model of the ocean as a whole system and enabling them to measure the scale of changes occurring as a result of human impact.’
And the scope of this work is now set to expand. ‘Measurements taken from The Ocean Race boats will provide scientists with baseline information not only on sea surface temperature but also salinity, acidity, dissolved carbon dioxide and microplastic pollution,’ Schmidt says. ‘Our boats will also supply real- time weather measurements that will help validate and improve weather forecasting systems. Not to mention the extraordinary life our sailors may report about at sea, or the larger plastic pollution they may encounter. There’s a phenomenon experienced by astronauts while in space flight that’s known as the overview effect. It’s a cognitive shift in perception that happens when the earth is first witnessed in its reality, hanging alone in the void of space, wrapped in a paper-thin protective atmosphere, seen suddenly as something rather fragile. At 11th Hour Racing we’re working with The Ocean Race to create an overview effect for the ocean, reaching audiences around the world online, at ocean summits and exploration zones at stopover cities, and changing their perceptions. Together we have a unique opportunity to join the sport we love with the science we need for the ocean.’
You can watch The Ocean Race Summit online via this shortened link:
https://bit.ly/3pFZ84S
q SEAHORSE 71
AMORY ROSS/11TH HOUR RACING
SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE
SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE
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