Sunday - October 29, 2006

Around The World

Surveying the crowded docks of the Las Olas Municipal Marina at today’s opening of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, your eyes wander over a sea of gleaming-white megayachts, each more expensive and tricked out than the one next to it.

But then your gaze falls on the weird-looking, gun-metal-gray contraption docked in Slip 226, and you utter an involuntary expletive. It’s the 78-foot Earthrace boat—a cross between Jules Verne and Star Trek. As one observer put it, “It looks like something the Romulans would travel in.’’

Its science-fiction looks aren’t the only facet of Earthrace’s uniqueness. It likely is one of the few at the show capable of circumnavigating the globe using biodiesel—fuel made from trans fats, animal fats and vegetable oil—to propel its twin 540-horsepower Cummins MerCruiser engines. Better Biodiesel of Spanish Fork, Utah, recently signed on as the fuel sponsor. Biodiesel advocate Willie Nelson is supposed to write a song.

Earthrace is appearing here as part of an international promotional tour to drum up financial support for a planned attempt in March to break the eight-year-old speed record for racing around the world in a powerboat. That record is held by the British boat Cable & Wireless Adventurer, which covered 26,000 miles in 74 days, 20 hours, 58 minutes in 1998. Bethune believes he can beat that by up to 15 days using only biodiesel fuel.

-- Miami Herald - October 26, 2006, “New Boat Is Out Of This World”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2006 at 04:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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