I suppose it was meant to be inspiring albeit a bit shocking, but whatever did happen to that eco boat, the one powered by bio-degradable fuel – more precisely human fat in this case. I believe that news was all the way back in 2007 when it first surfaced that Pete Bethune had his mortgaged his house and sold all that he and his owned to invest in making a bio-fueled boat a dream come true. But that wasn’t quite why the news gained popularity; it was the fact that they had sold everything to invest in a boat that would be fueled by human fat and to add to that, he underwent liposuction to donate to his environmental cause. Mind you, his boat cost about $3 million to build, carries weighs 23 tons when full and has a capacity of 3,000 gallons of fuel! And his liposuction only produced 100ml worth of fuel! At that point it time I was quite baffled by how he was going to fill a 3,000 gallon tank, but come to think of it thousands undergo the knife each year to remove access fat anyway so wouldn’t be much of an issue… I know I’ve got a few kgs to share but surgery really isn’t for me.
So whatever became of that boat and what did it achieve? Well it achieved Earthrace….something which I think too few people care to know about. Earthrace isn’t quite a race but rather a boat. In fact Earthrace was an amazing powerboat that holds the record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe (60 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes), the very boat that Pete fuels with bio-fuel.
Of course now the Earthrace vessel has been renamed as Ady Gil in honor of the benefactor who helped acquire the boat with his generous aid of $1,000,000. But the vessel isn’t just for navigating across the globe as a green statement because in 2009, The Ady Gil become the newest member of an anti-whaling fleet for ‘Operation Waltzing Matilda’ in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
The events that follow, leaves the Ady Gill something to weep over as on 5 January 2010 the vessel was “murdered” by the Shonan Maru #2 ( a Japanese Whaling Vessel)and sunk into the oceans depths 2 days on. Later in February Pete Bethune would be held in Japan to face a trial on five charges: trespass, causing injuries, forcible obstruction of business, destruction of property and illegal possession of a knife (a pocket knife used by Bethune to cut the anti-boarding net on the Shonan Maru #2). the trial began on 27 May 2010, and on 7th July, Pete was found guilty of all five charges. He was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for five years and later that week, he was deported from Japan, arriving back in Auckland, NZ on 10th July.
Amazing and inspiring story about a man who made a green boat from repurposing human fat then progressed into an ant-whaling warrior.
