is not incentivised or required by the rules. So our focus was to explore the status quo of the sport and to tackle the challenges faced by all our peers: “what do we need to do to make our sport sustainable?”’
specialised materials we’ve inflated the transport and delivery footprint. It’s not uncommon for a flatbed truck to arrive in the yard with just one special piece of Nomex,’ Foxall says. The increase in structural complexity requires more man- hours, energy-intensive cure cycles and waste, as an example the use of prepreg carbon generates its own weight in single-use plastic waste. Performance developments such as foil structures in particular have had a huge impact on the carbon footprint of the build process. Foxall, who is well known to
most Seahorse readers as a top- level ocean racer, now works full time as 11th Hour Racing Team’s sustainability manager with a mission, he says, ‘to embed sustainability into the endless search for performance’. ‘As with all other teams we are working within the constraints of the class rules and the normal build timelines,’ Foxall says. ‘It takes at least 18 months to trial new materials and test them for reliability. So even though we started two years ahead of The Ocean Race, it was already too late to do something radically different, in terms of materials or process, that
Top: this fore- deck fairing is part of the 75kg of non- structural components aboard Malama that are made from sustainable alternative materials. Above: Flax fibre Powerribs and recycled PET core from Gurit are two of the most promising alternative materials evaluated by the team. Right: CDK Technologies is on a
100 per cent renewable energy tariff, which reduces the carbon footprint of the build by 30 per cent
Foxall and his colleagues Amy Munro, the team’s in-house sustainability officer, and its build manager, former pro sailor Wade Morgan have mapped out complex supply chains, investigated alternative materials at the bleeding edge of technology, and meticulously recorded vast amounts of data. They’ve been working with Etienne Le Pen, a young French academic (and top Laser sailor) who took a 12-month internship as part of his masters degree at CDK Technologies while the team’s Imoca was in build. With Le Pen working full time at the yard, the team achieved a new benchmark in accuracy, detail and scope of the team’s lifecycle analysis – which covered all components of the boat, not just the hull. Munro and Morgan, meanwhile, have researched and trialled next- generation materials such as Amplitex flax fibre from BComp, bioresins made by Sicomin and Gurit, recycled PET core also from Gurit, and Powerribs, a bio-based material inspired by leaf veins, which also turned out to be a useful and alternative transfer medium for resin during the infusion process. Their research into another promising material, recycled carbon fibre tape, is still ongoing.
75kg of non-structural components made from these materials are already on board including hatch covers, fairings on the foredeck, internal furniture, steps, and the engine and battery boxes. That figure will rise next year to at least 100kg, quite possibly more. ‘Our role was to pilot the new Imoca rule coming in next year that allows items made from alternative materials to be removed from the boat’s measured light ship displacement, which allows us to add a bit more ballast,’ Morgan says. ‘If they decide to increase the allowance to 200 or even 300kg, we’d be ready to do that – we’ll find
more and more areas to explore.’ A German boatbuilder, Greenboats, supplied three hatches for the boat made using bioresin, flax fibre, and recycled PET and balsa cores. For any full custom build, half of the composite materials that are used don’t even make it into the boat, they go into the plug and mould. Following the build of 11th Hour Racing Team’s new boat, their mould was used to build another Imoca, Maître Coq. ‘That’s approximately 150 tonnes of carbon footprint reduction passed on to them and each subsequent user, almost 25 per cent of the total build footprint for each reuse,’ Foxall says. ‘This underlines another key point for new policy and class rules, incentivising longevity and reuse.’ The 570-tonne CO2e carbon footprint for an Imoca build might seem high, but as Munro explains it should be seen in context. The operational carbon footprint of an Imoca team that is actively racing adds up to around 200-500-tonne CO2e per year and for teams in the last Ocean Race it was upwards of 1,000-tonne CO2e per annum. The build footprint, while large, is just 10-20 per cent of an initial ten-year lifespan of a boat, highlighting that not only class but most importantly event and race rule amendments are required to reduce these ultimately bigger impacts.
With the team’s new Imoca Mālama now in the water, shaken down in the Défi Azimut and preparing for its first major test, the Transat Jacques Vabre, Foxall and Munro are now compiling a comprehensive design and build report to share with the rest of the industry. The aim is to create a benchmark and roadmap that will enable other teams within and beyond the Imoca class to make well informed sustainable decisions without giving away any competitive advantage. Some of their top-level findings will be published in the next issue of Seahorse, with practical advice on how to apply them. The team's full Design and Build Report is available now.
11thhourracingteam.org q SEAHORSE 63
AMORY ROSS/11TH HOUR RACING
BEN BIREAU/11TH HOUR RACING
AMORY ROSS/11TH HOUR RACING
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