Plastiki - cross Pacific voyage

This is interesting - a 60-foot catamaran boat named Plastiki, constructed out of recycled plastic bottles, is planning to make a cross-Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Australia. Depature is set for April 28th.

This is kind of a cross between Kon-Tiki and modern-day beachcombing -- I doubt Thor Heyerdahl had the option of using plastic bottles for his historic trip.

I wonder if they will have an actual plastic tiki on board.

More information on the journey can be found here .....
http://www.adventureecology.com/theplastiki/

Vern

I love it!
Thanks, Ikitnrev!

I'm glad someone finally decided to do it right and call their raft the plastiki!

At the aquarium I do a lot of work with Algalita, which is THE organization that is doing research about plastics in the ocean: http://www.algalita.org/index.html

In addition to the very serious research, they do all kinds of educational stunts to raise awareness of plastics in the ocean. One of which was to sail a raft to hawaii completely made of plastic/trash/junk. I mean completely too - all the rigging and lines were made from knotted plastic bags!

Here's the voyages website: http://www.junkraft.com/home.html

I spoke with Marcus about calling his expedition "the voyage of the plastiki". Although he was familiar with Thor's book and expedition, he opted for "Junkraft" He wanted me to fashion a tiki out of plastic bottles for the front of the boat, but I wasn't able to pull it together in time for the sailing. It would have been cool, though.

Your link is fantastic vern! That boat looks WAY more sea worthy than Marcus' and it should be considering all the stops it's going to be making! This is one to keep an eye on fo sho!

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2009-04-13 15:39 ]

Wow Jim,
that would have been amazing to have a plastic tiki on that. Someone else also had CanTiki. I forget where I read it, but a guy built a floating barge or boat from cans.

A few years back I had planned on getting shredded plastic from a recycler plant and making tiki necklaces from them, but I still had to use a toxic resin binder that I didn't want to work with.

A Yahoo video re: Plastiki

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=15617711&ch=4226724&src=news

Very cool, thanks for the links, Tony, have you thought about weaving or tab connecting rather than gluing?

Final destination arrived: Sydney end of the trip.
15000 Kilometers in 4 months

It takes cojones and sea pollution!

Periodico Reforma Mexico Seccion Internacional Today.

Congrats Captain David de Rothschild and 6 people crew!