What is the boating industry doing to mitigate global warming?

Global warming.
We live in a chaotic world of global warming and overconsumption where everything is valued in dollars. Global warming is accelerating.
With a few exceptions, manufacturers continue to produce boats for ever higher speeds with deep V-bottoms and ever larger energy-guzzling engines. Everyone is competing on the same playing field.
There is knowledge to create efficient and seaworthy boats with extremely simple methods.
EcoSmart is an example that shows possibilities.
How are we going to reach the uneducated consumer?
What is the boating industry doing to mitigate global warming? Really?
JS

 

Global warming

Climate change is unstoppable.

Unstoppable.

(It is ridiculous and colossally arrogant to think that if we all held our breath we would be able to make the sun rise in the west)

Pollution is a different issue.

Electrification and the cheapness of renewable electricity are a different issue.

The industrial revolution in batteries and other forms of storage, such as pumping water, is another.

A bunch of topics that, unfortunately, tend to get mixed up, complicating rational discussion.

 

Electric is the current buzz word. However, Li Ion batteries are creating more problems than they solve. They are extremely difficult and expensive to recycle. Also, electricity does not come out of a magic outlet, it has to be generated and transmitted. Superyachts are getting "green" tax credits because they put solar panels on a 200 foot yacht that carries 12 passengers. To really lessen the impact on the environment, we have to go smaller and slower.

 

The 'boating industry"...not much, because the environmental effect is so small compared to other things. Realistically, the selection of the vehicle and power source operators use to drive too and from the boat for each use will likely have more effect than can be squeezed out of general production. This is a big picture issue, where do you draw the "global warming" boundary as gonzo notes....does it include the CAT bulldozer that strip mines the rare earths for the batteries?

 

You can't change people.
People change on their own, if at all.
We'll ride climate change out until something else catastrophic comes along,
like the next pandemic or nuclear war.

 

Sails are fairly benign but the manufacturing process is moderately energy intensive for whole boats.A rowing boat ,built of wood and kept within walking distance of home is about as green as it gets.Hundreds,even thousands of horsepower being used to push a boat at high speed does seem hard to justify and the argument that "It's my money and I'll spend it how I like" is not helping to sustain a stable ecosystem.Sadly,commercial reality is pushing the boating industry in the direction of boats that require a lot of energy to both build and use.Th occasional outlier makes little difference.Perhaps some moderation would occur if all governments applied a similar rate of energy taxation relative to their average income levels to deter excessive use and they might offer encouragement to the builders to use energy efficient buildings and processes.More sophisticated manufacturing techniques can build lighter structures,but at the cost of more time to do so.Whether the cost would be recouped by lower fuel use of the boat and any vehicle used to transport it is debatable.

 

Pollution, lack of minerals in depleted lands, meat-from-concentration-camps (versus meat raised in the wild) are (imho) huge and worrying problems compared to the un-stop-pable global warming.

 

By seeing through the egocentric and observing the whole, each one can contribute to improving the situation.
As an active and free boat designer, I can choose which projects I undertake. One example is EcoSmart, which has halved the power requirement.
EcoSmart, an efficient motorboat https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/ecosmart-an-efficient-motorboat.66733/
The problem, however, is that the general public is not aware that there are opportunities to significantly reduce the power requirement with extremely simple methods.
How are we going to convey this knowledge to the common man?
JS

 

John Passmore

John Passmore – Old Man Sailing https://www.oldmansailing.com/author/admin-oldmansailing-com/

He was the one who gave me the clue about the minerals, and it seems to me that it makes a lot of sense and logic.

He spent a lot of money on minerals and they were of no use to him because our digestive system cannot assimilate them. The mineral must be contained within a molecule, similar to eating a vegetable.

My wife was deteriorating on a downward slope, and this good idea (minerals within a larger molecule) helped slow her fall a lot.

The depleted fields hypothesis is quite reasonable.

Chelation - Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation

 

The common man is less interested in saving money than you think.

Consider a boater on the southern half of the US who is a recreational fisherman. On any given day; he gets in the boat and runs maybe a total of 20 miles (avg). Modern four strokes offer him 2mpg and he uses 10 gallons of fuel that cost here in the US, let’s say $40. During his day; he walks around on the vessel, casts for fish, eats lunch.

You offer him a choice for a boat that is half as wide on the beam that saves him $20 an outing.

You will be rejected by 95/100 recreational boaters. Maybe more..

The problem is your design offer less comfort and the tradeoff fails. So the challenge in design is not simply designing for optimal fuel.

Now, let’s say you design a boat that is just as comfortable, uses half the fuel, but goes half as fast. About 70% I’d say will reject the design on power too low.

 

Currently, on my old Mini Transat, I've replaced its old and heavy 6-horsepower engine with a very cheap and lightweight Chinese copy of Mr. Soichiro Honda's 2-horsepower engine.

Soichiro Honda - Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soichiro_Honda

If one day i recover from my terrible financial ruin and still have the energy for my light sailboat project, I'll install a 24-volt electric motor. Two solar panels, one on the port and one on the starboard, one powering a 12-volt 50-amp LiFePO4 battery and the other powering a 24-volt battery for the engine.

 

The general question posed about the boating industry is one that hasn't really been addressed.There are a number of aspects that could be better,from reducing the amount of materials used as consumables during manufacture to better insulating the buildings in which the boats are built.I live sufficiently far north that having to air condition the factories isn't a consideration,but do realise that in some countries it is necessary and uses a vast amount of energy.

Lightweight and minimalist boats will always use less energy and a smaller pile of materials that their heavier sisters,but that needs to be balanced against the need for a longer and more diligent build process and very likely,more expensive materials and a likely smaller customer base if they can buy a similar sized boat for less elsewhere.For a small boat that lives on a trailer and gets towed to the water,we ought to factor in the fuel used simply to transport the boat to and from the launching site.As fallguy alludes,the fuel cost for some boats isn't really a consideration in the greater scheme of boating budgets,why?Well in the more fashionable places it costs quite a lot to rent a marina space and they charge by length.A long and slender hull costs quite a lot for a fairly spartan living experience,both in mooring fees and initial purchase when compared to a floating weekend cottage that doesn't go too far and stays close to a good restaurant.We have lots of those.The boating industry is driven by economics of production;to build boats at a cost that allows a profit to be made and to build boats that people want to buy.Failure to do both leads to the disappearance of the business and that often happens.Global warming is hardly influenced by leisure boating.

 

Maybe you can find a forum that deals with those issues. Please don't hijack a thread in a boating forum with issues that don't pertain.

 

@wet feet. Marina charges and registration charges have driven boat design for decades. They are based on length, so a chubby boat with the same accomodations as a longer, more fuel efficient one, will be cheaper to own.

 

At least two of us understand that then.Here in the UK we don't have compulsory registration but even in regions where it is required it can hardly be said to be the problem of the industry.Likewise,the industry isn't responsible for the way in which owners use their boats.They are responsible for the resources that are consumed in producing the boats and the energy requirements of the premises in which the boats are built.I would think that the financial controllers of the larger companies will have one eye on limiting consumption of such resources.The marketing managers will be striving for products that sell and will be guided by market research rather than ideology.