As most of you already know, I am fairly passionate about all things wind – and by that I mean sailboats and wind turbines. They are both such beautiful structures, and sailboats are a particular love of mine. So, of course I read lots of news about sailboats new and old, sailboat racing, and all about the new boats that come out every year. One thing that struck me fairly recently is that I have been seeing a lot of articles about boat builders, mostly in Europe, and mostly in the large racing yacht business – that is where the money is in this business after all. The things I’m seeing is that boat builders are increasingly using recycled carbon fiber for lots of things, including the hulls themselves.
So this post is going to have lots of pretty boat pictures in it, like the one above. This is one of the two Oracle Team USA boats that was recently recycled by Core Composites, working with none other than Carbon Conversions in Lake City, South Carolina. Carbon Conversions took the hulls, chopped them up, and used their process to remove the resin and make carbon fiber products ready to use. And Oracle used this fiber to make the molds for their next generation racing boats, so this is a full circle use of carbon fiber.
Companies in Europe are actually leading the way in this regard, primarily because of the new European Green deal that I have talked about in this newsletter several times. A good example of this is ELG Carbon Fiber in Cosely, UK that teamed up with the British sailing team INEOS Team UK to make sure that sustainable materials and processes were used in their Americas Cup 2021 boat building program.
I told you this post was going to have pictures of sailboats. At least these are really pretty pics – don’t you agree?
ELG has been a supplier to INEOS since 2018 and had as of 2019 processed 1000 kg of carbon fiber manufacturing waste for the INEOS racing team in the UK. That’s about a ton for those of you who like me are used to the inch/pound system rather than the metric system.
These two organizations view this partnership as a vital link between the suppliers and users of carbon fiber to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry. And especially since they make racing sailboats which makes them very public facing and t hey have a reputation to worry about. And since they are sailors at heart, they are also very concerned about climate change and what we are doing to our atmosphere. Maybe that’s where I get my sentiments in that regard. It could also be that I grew up in a rain forest in Western Oregon so I know natural beauty when I see it.
Back to the task at hand – there is another example of a fairly new startup that has gone entirely over to natural fibers, recycled carbon fiber, and plant-based resins. Italian startup Northern Light Composites teamed up with Arkema and their Elium® plant-based resin to build their 100% recyclable sailboats.
These boats include not only racing sailboats like the Team Oracle and the INEOS boats they are using recycled and/or recyclable materials for every boat they build, all the way from small sailing dinghies all the way up to ocean going yachts.
Arkema actually contracted with Northern Lights Composites to build the 10 meter (~30’) Arkema 900 (pictured above), their Ecoprimus small dinghy for children (also pictured above), and a 9 meter Ecoracer 769. This was all as of the end of 2021, so it is pretty clear that this startup is well on its way to becoming a big player in the sustainable sporting sailing industry.
Finally, there is another what has become worldwide sailing organization – 11th Hour Racing – started by three people – Wendy Schmidt a philanthropist, sailor and sailmaker Rob McMillan and sailor Jeremy Pochman – when they finally got fed up seeing single use plastic bottles floating out in the open ocean, and especially around sailing regattas where they were routinely tossed overboard when the people had used them up.
In 2022 they teamed up with Gen 2 Carbon, a carbon fiber recycling company based in France to recycle tons of waste from the sailing community in Brittany, France. This is of course the heart and soul of the offshore racing industry in France, so that’s a great place to start.
11th Hour Racing not only has Gen 2 Carbon recycle tons of carbon fiber scrap from the racing sailboat industry they also use the recycled carbon fiber in the form of Gen 2 Carbon’s G-TEX recycled carbon mat product to make new carbon fiber racing sailboat hulls. And by doing this they net about an 80-95% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in every new boat that gets built using this material. They are well on their way to meeting their part of the Paris climate goals that all developed countries signed up for.
I told you that you were going to see lots of pretty boat pictures in this post. Hopefully I accomplished at least that. The bottom line here is that it appears that the recreational and racing marine industry is very nearly completely on board with reduction in their carbon footprint and use of sustainable, recyclable, and as much as possible recycled materials in their new constructions. This is one industry that therefore bodes well for our future and should be a positive example to the rest of the industries that use composites. These materials, if they can make successful racing sailboats out of them, prove that they are very worthy of use in any structurally or environmentally challenging application.
And it makes sense that is it this industry that is pioneering a lot of this effort. If you have ever been out on the ocean in a sailboat and felt the cool breeze on your face and smelled the very fresh air out there you will understand. I have, and I love it. It’s one of the places where I am most at peace with the world.
That’s about it for this week. I hope everyone that reads these posts enjoys them as much as I enjoy writing them. As usual I will post this first on my website – www.nedpatton.com – as well as on LinkedIn. And if anyone wants to provide comments to this, I welcome them with open arms. Comments, criticisms, etc. are all quite welcome. I really do want to engage in a conversation with all of you about composites because we can learn so much from each other as long as we share our own perspectives.
For my upcoming book, I only need to get permission to use two more images and this thing is in the hands of McFarland Books. I have talked about this one now for a month or two to let everyone know it is about what I have been writing in these newsletters for the last 6 months or so – sustainability of composites and a path to the future that does not include using fossil fuels for either the raw materials or the process energy to make composites.
Finally, I still need to plug my first book, so here’s the plug. The book pretty much covers the watershed in composites, starting with a brief history of composites, then introducing the Periodic Table and why Carbon is such an important and interesting element. The book was published and made available last August and is available both on Amazon and from McFarland Books – my publisher. However, the best place to get one is to go to my website and buy one. I will send you a signed copy for the same price you would get charged on Amazon, except that I charge $8 shipping. Anyway, here’s the link to get your signed copy: https://www.nedpatton.com/product-page/the-string-and-glue-of-our-world-signed-copy. And as usual, here’s a picture of the book.
Comments