Chasing new horizons
A team of French sailors are about to set off on the first ever round-the-world journey aboard a hydrogen-powered yacht to demonstrate the exciting potential of this carbon-free power source
WORDS: JOHN C SILCOX
PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG WHITE
The small port of Saint-Malo in north-west France boasts a rich history of maritime exploration. Over the years, adventurers such as Jacques Cartier, who laid claim to what is now Canada, have set sail from here to journey across the ocean in search of new lands and prosperity.
The walled city thrived on the trade generated by such expeditions and gained a reputation in the 18th century as a bastion of corsairs: pirates approved by the French King who plundered riches from British, Dutch and Spanish merchant ships all over the globe. Nowadays Saint-Malo still looks to the sea, and relies on fishing, boatbuilding and tourism brought in by the cross-channel ferry service to Portsmouth, rather than piracy. And in a secret shipyard close to the city centre, a small team are working hard to finish an exciting project that taps directly into some of the port’s more adventurous heritage. They are building a vessel called Energy Observer that aims to become the first boat to sail around the world fuelled by renewable hydrogen power.
Not that you’d realise this if you walked around the large dusty hangar that serves as the project’s current headquarters. The giant skeleton of a catamaran is hidden under swathes of dust sheets and encased in scaffolding, as workmen prepare the ship’s hull and kit out the inside with equipment and technology. Yet even the small glimpses of uncovered parts that reveal gorgeous curves, futuristic shapes and eye-catching colours, and the sight of piles of high-tech components waiting to be installed, hint at the exciting potential of such a project.
The explanations provided by the venture’s leaders, Saint-Malo residents Victorien Erussard and Jérôme Delafosse, also help to bring things fully into perspective, as they take us on a guided tour. ‘We are setting ourselves a great challenge from a human and technological perspective,’ says Victorien, a successful competitive yacht racer and officer in the merchant navy who originally dreamed up the project. ‘Even with today’s most advanced vessels, sailing round the world is no mean feat. So trying to do so using a completely new technology is really setting the bar high, but we’re confident that it will be a great success, and hopefully it will open people’s eyes to the great potential that renewable hydrogen power can offer the world.’
Indeed, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and contains three times more energy by unity of mass than diesel, yet its combustion doesn’t emit any CO2 emissions or other fine particles. But pure hydrogen is very rarely found in nature, and is normally associated with other elements. Currently 95 per cent of hydrogen produced industrially uses fossil fuels, and its use on a wider scale demands a lot of research and development – something the Energy Observer project is aiming to help drive.
In keeping with the renewable spirit of the project, the team is adapting a 33-year-old former racing catamaran rather than wasting resources on a new-build. Under sail, the ship has already been around the world twice with previous owners, but it is being heavily adapted to suit its new purpose and house a raft of new technologies. It will measure 30.5 metres long and 12.8 metres wide, and house eight people on board: four sailors, one media person and three guests, who will be selected for each leg of the journey.
At the heart of the boat will sit two electric motors with 97 per cent yield, linked to two brass propellers that push the vessel forward. These are fed by lithium-ion batteries that harvest energy from two wind turbines, a spread of solar panels and a hydrogen fuel cell. In a similar way to the Audi h-tron quattro concept, this fuel cell draws on reservoirs of hydrogen and creates electricity while only emitting water vapour. But unlike the Audi, which needs to fill up its tank at a pump, the boat will be able to produce its own hydrogen from seawater using excess electricity from the batteries.
‘Our main goal is to use every single bit of power we can and not waste any,’ adds Victorien, talking about the complex relationship between the energy-efficient technologies on board. ‘To put things simply, we will be managing a smart grid of energy, coming from a number of sources. When there is enough wind, we will also pull ourselves along with a kite sail and generate electricity by the reverse process, so the propellers create extra electricity that can be stored in the batteries. Thanks to this clever mix of technology, we will always be able to create power, whatever the conditions.’
To achieve their goals, the team has linked up with a number of research units that specialise in energy solutions. The journey around the world will enable them to test the technology in the most extreme conditions. As if corrosive saltwater and high winds weren’t enough of a threat, extreme temperatures on the equator and up in the Arctic Circle will push individual elements to the limit. In fact this is the real aim of the project: rather than simply being a journey in itself, the project seeks to prove that renewable energies are viable alternatives to fossil fuels, whatever the circumstances. This is why Victorien invited Jérôme, a writer, diver and underwater filmmaker, to partner him on the adventure and help tell their story.
‘I was brought up dreaming about the adventures of my heroes – Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer and conservationist, and Peter Blake, the yacht racer and activist from New Zealand,’ says Jérôme, explaining the duo’s inspirations. ‘With Energy Observer we hope to inspire a future generation of adventurers and show people that there are still many new ways of enjoying our planet, without destroying it. That’s why we’re not trying to break speed records or anything like that. Our aim is to take time to explore the world, testing out new technologies and meeting new people.’
The boat will be completed and put back in the water before June this year, when it will sail off on its maiden journey down to Paris for its first stop. It will act as a mobile showroom moored on the River Seine, welcoming guests and visitors, before it sets off on a year’s tour of France towards Monaco, stopping off at a number of key destinations along the way. After that it will embark on a two-year tour of northern Europe and the Mediterranean.
Once this is completed, Energy Observer will set sail across the Atlantic for a tour of North America in 2020, and then head across the Pacific towards Asia, before returning to France via the Middle East in 2022. The journey will take six years to complete. ‘We aim to make 101 different stop-offs during the trip,’ says Jérôme. ‘These will be a wide range of different destinations, from large cities to small villages, and it will include a whole host of different encounters with big companies, small projects and individuals. Our aim is to open the dialogue with as many different people as possible, to teach them about what we are doing and also learn from what they are up to. That will be one of the main ways of exploring. We will also be recording and promoting these encounters via our own media platform. The aim is to share stories and information via video, press and online, as well as social. We want people to dream of a cleaner future with us.’
The project will also be exploring in a more traditional way, and plotting new routes across the ocean. One of the technologies the team has on board is similar to the tools used by yacht racers to help them plot out the best course, taking into account traditional navigation factors such as wind, currents and waves, as well as strength of sunshine and cloud cover. This will enable Energy Observer to follow the most efficient routes across the seas, while generating the maximum amount of energy and saving time.
‘If these energy sources become more dependable and widespread then more transport companies will start considering them as an alternative, including for sea freight,’ concludes Jérôme. ‘Maybe the routes we map out will become shipping lanes of the future? And perhaps in years to come Saint-Malo will be remembered as the birthplace of the world’s new shipping routes. With that in mind, I hope people don’t forget about the pirates – where would the romance be in sea adventures without swashbuckling.’
