The will to change
But where do you start? Vendée Globe competitor Conrad Colman has been among a handful of committed early adopters showing what is already possible – and without sacrificing any competitive performance
So do renewables actually work? Hell, yeah!
Conrad Colman’s 16th place Vendée Globe finish in 2017 was remarkable for many reasons: not only did he bring home his boat to a huge public welcome after losing the rig mid-Atlantic, but less well known perhaps is that he made it around without fossil fuels of any kind. And he wants to do it again. ‘I wanted to be the first sailor to complete the lap without burning fossil fuels,’ says the Lorient-based Kiwi. ‘Raphaël Dinelli tried in 2008 with Foundation Océan Vital, Javier Sanso’s Accionain 2012 really advanced the thinking in terms of renewables. Sadly neither finished the race. So given the efforts by others to tackle this technological challenge I was delighted to have been the first to pull it off. ‘Even before I had a sponsor
74 SEAHORSE
active in the renewables sector, I ripped the diesel engine out of my boat,’ says Colman. Look at his website (
conradcolman.com) and you’ll find a revealing choice of quote, by Eleanor Roosevelt: ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.’ Colman is a true believer and, with a will like that, a fossil fuel-free circumnavigation was always on the cards. ‘I replaced the engine with an electric motor from Finnish company OceanVolt, batteries by Super B in Holland and solar panels from Italian company Solbian. I also trialled prototype thin-film solar panels from a company in southern France, but they are not yet a mature technology and failed after a couple of days. It clearly takes an international effort to go green!’ Colman has proved it is possible to sail around the world without
Conrad
Colman in his full Horatio Nelson mode before he lost his rig… but still made it back to the Vendée finish without any assistance. Colman had made a deep commitment to avoiding fossil fuel use and his lead is now being picked up by several new projects all benefiting from the focused support of 11th Hour Racing
fossil fuels, but how much power was he generating? ‘The electric system from OceanVolt worked flawlessly, and I was one of the only boats in the fleet with a power source – using the engine as a generator – that could charge at over 20kt of boatspeed, and at that speed it generated 8kW... so much power I could have run the average American home!
‘Charging became strategic and I could replace 24 hours of consumption in only 15 minutes with the motor on recharge mode, with the propeller slightly opened to spin the motor,’ adds Colman. ‘During the day the 400W of Solbian panels could carry the base load consumption of the boat and also top up a little. The result was that I had about a week's autonomy stored in the batteries and didn't have to constantly worry
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