Plastiki - she's off, San Francisco to Sydney

5:37 AM Sun 21 Mar 2010 GMT

'Plastiki on a mooring in San Francisco, set to sail this morning from San Francisco to Sydney' . Click Here to view large photo

After years of planning and preparation, the boat built of 12,500 plastic bottles was finally set to sail this morning from the Sausalito Yacht Harbour in San Francisco on its Pacific crossing adventure, to end up in Sydney.

The purpose, said expedition leader and scion of the Rothschild banking family David de Rothschild, is to draw attention to the health of the oceans and to demonstrate the value of recycled plastic bottles. De Rothschild and his crew of five hope to sail to Australia, a voyage of about 11,000 nautical miles.

The Plastiki, named in honor of Norwegian explorer Thor Hyderdahl's raft Kon Tiki, is a boat like no other in the world. Besides the hull of recycled plastic water and soda bottles, the vessel is made of a hardened plastic called PET.

The boat is a twin-hulled catamaran rigged as a ketch. It will rely on the wind for propulsion and has only a small auxiliary engine. No such boat has ever made an ocean passage before.

The Plastiki was built on the San Francisco waterfront in 2009 and has been making trial voyages on the bay recently, test sails for the larger voyage.

The trip was set to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the Clipper Yacht Harbor, 420 Harbor Drive, and the vessel will be escorted to sea by small boats.

Well known racing skipper, and skipper for this journey, is Jo Royle, who said the first port of call will be one of the Line Islands, a small group of atolls south of Hawaii.

The voyage can be followed on the Internet at www.theplastiki.com .

by Carl Nolte, SFGate/Sail-World Cruising

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Plastiki - she's off, San Francisco to Sydney

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