Stott, an ex astronaut, helps amplify the message for ocean racing team
Charlie Enright, sailor, and Nicole Stott, retired astronaut, have seen the beauty and fragility of Earth from perspectives that few others will ever be able to see.
Enright and his 11th Hour Racing Team are becoming more environmentally conscious each time they circumnavigate the globe. Their third lap around the planet, in the Ocean Race starting Sunday from Alicante, Spain, will focus on ocean health as much as trying to win one of sailing’s most grueling competitions.
11th Hour Racing released a clip called “Friday, Friday” on Friday. “The Oceanview Effect,” Enright, the skipper and cofounder of the team, describes the life-changing feeling that sailors feel as they speed off from land to the unspoiled ocean. It’s similar to the Overview Effect astronauts feel when they first look at the planet.
“What we do to the ocean, we do to ourselves. The source of life on Earth, we need to treat it that way,” Enright says at the end of the clip.
Stott has been fully on board with this message since 11th Hour Racing invited her to become an ambassador. Just before Christmas, she met with Enright in Rhode Island to share their experiences and mutual interest in ocean health.
“It just really beautifully ties together,” said Stott, who spent 104 days in space during two missions, and made a spacewalk during a three-month stay on the International Space Station in 2009.
Stott said she looks forward to following 11th Hour Racing’s progress aboard its 60-foot foiling sloop Mālama in the five-boat IMOCA Class in the Ocean Race, which will cover 32,000 nautical miles over seven legs before finishing in Genova, Italy, in early July. There will be a stopover in May in Newport, Rhode Island, 11th Hour Racing’s home base and near Enright’s hometown of Bristol.
Stott said that Oceanview Effect and Overview Effect exposure can encourage adventurers once they return home to terra firma.
“OK, I’m on a spaceship orbiting Earth or I’m on a boat traveling across the ocean, where it feels like it’s just me and yet feeling more connected to everything around you than you might have before, and trying to bring that understanding to light in not just that moment, but OK, how do I carry that forward?” Stott said in an interview. “What meaningful thing can I do with this reality check that I’ve had from this really extraordinary place that I’ve been?”
For Stott, that meant writing a book, “Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet―And Our Mission to Protect It.” Coincidentally, Stott works with Plant A Million Corals of Summerland Key, Florida, which has discovered an accelerated way to restore lost and damaged coral reefs and is a grantee of 11th Hour Racing.
Stott recalls zooming in from space on the effects climate change, including the breaking up of glaciers in Patagonia and the dangerous but beautiful algae blooms in ocean. She is a certified scuba diver, and spent 18 days at the Aquarius laboratory undersea as part of her astronaut training.
For Enright, it means ramping up 11th Hour Racing’s message of caring for the ocean. He knows that it’s what sailors can’t see — microplastics, warming oceans and rising acidity levels — that is as damaging as what they can see, such as loss of biodiversity and debris.
“For us, it’s been a transformative journey,” said Enright, who cofounded the sailing team with fellow Brown alum Mark Towill beginning with the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race.
“The first time we went around the world it was just through the observation of marine debris that we realized we kind of had a problem. The first lap of this world was our awakening. The second lap was then about sharing it with others. We are the canaries of the coal mine trying communicate some of the issues. Now that’s not good enough. Now it’s about solutions.”
Towill, who’s from Hawaii, stepped off the boat after the 2017-18 race to become team CEO and focus on building Mālama, which in Hawaiian means “to care for and protect.”
Mālama was built using renewable energy sources and with a number of innovations designed to reduce 11th Hour Racing’s carbon footprint. The team is committed to going beyond net zero, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%.
11th Hour Racing replaced 220lbs of carbon fibre with renewable materials, such as three hatch doors made out of flax, bio-based resin, and recycled plastic.
The team created a program to recycle carbon fiber in France. They have recycled more than 3 tons of it into carbon fiber tape that can be used in future builds.
Cameras at the top of the mast will use AI technology to help steer clear of marine mammals, and equipment aboard will measure the ocean’s temperature, salinity and mercury levels. A hydro generator and solar panels will provide three-quarters of onboard energy.
Enright is twice as determined to win after finishing fifth in the Ocean Race.
“If you’re just kind of sailing along and putting pictures of flax on Instagram, what’s your credibility?” Enright agreed. “You’re certainly a lot more credible when you’re on top of the podium with the microphone and an opportunity to influence.”
___
Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson