carbon foot print

all the eco freindly tree huggers out there seem to be going on about reducing your carbon foot print. now im not entirely sure what this means but what i want to know is how much does sailing a cherub or international moth (or any other lightweight carbon class that breaks a lot) effect your carbon foot print compared to say sailing and maintaining a non carbon boat e.g laser or GP 14 say?

as an afterthought, do wooden boats have more of an effect than carbon boats on your carbon foot print?

Creating Carbon Cloth requires extreme amounts of energy.
Glass slightly less.
Wood absorbs Co2 whilst it is growing. And this is locked into the wood but the same amount it took in is released when, say you burn it. So it is Carbon Neutral. But there are plenty of processes that it goes through before boat builders use it, like Lamination, and a lot of it is from unsustainable forestry, esp if it's hardwood.

So when you then put all the other energy uses of transport, chemical production, negative habitat effects etc I can't see that there would be much of a difference between any of them. But this is just a guess.

Frankly sailing isn't a very eco, all be it more eco than say power boat racing.

To answer the question though. I would of thought after you do a very long calculation a smaller boat ie. Cherub or Int Moth that used less materials in the first place, that was light so it took less energy to transport and lasted longer would end up being fairly competitive in the who's got the lowest carbon foot print.

Having said that you are still probable better of in a wooded Mirror.


Edited by Jack Sparrow

Originally posted by turnturtle surely a thermo plastic-fantastic dinghy is the best... at least it can be recycled into something more useful.  Although I still think wooden boats are the most eco-friendly; afterall what else would make such a lovely ornamental flower pot on a roundabout in Staines?

Yes you are probable right on both counts!

As long as you buy secondhand, your purchase is carbon neutral, as you were not responsible for the harvesting of the materials initially.

Maybe rota-moulded is the way to go to reduce the future of  sailing's  carbon footprint....

- I am sure  some bright spark can think of a way of turning those  empty plastic milk bottles I re-cycle into  a  brand new laser/topper dinghy!

Anyhow,  I wouldn't be too worried about the carbon footprint of  a few moths/cherubs.... think what the footprint of running an America Cup or  Volvo70 boat...  

- carbon boat  (going to be bigger & there 's a 2nd boat to train against!)

- carbon sails (huge sail area)

- carbon masts

- logistics of  transporting crew and boats around the planet/Europe for pre-cup racing.

- steaks, beer and chips for big chunky  crew (flown/driven across the world).

- All those nasty chemicals for painting/polishing/cleaning  boats ropes sals.

 

and then there are all the  super yachts and super-motor boats... lots of fuel/more chemicals etc....