Wave-piercing, biodiesel boat hits high seas

Miguel Llanos Reporter • Profile • E-mail

SEATTLE — Some guys enter mid-life on a Harley. Peter Bethune is doing it on a $2.5 million boat that he hopes will smash the record for fastest powerboat trip around the world.

But for all the muscle embodied by his boat, Bethune's biggest passion is what fuels the machine: biodiesel, a cleaner alternative to diesel that can be made from soybeans, used vegetable oil and even animal fat.

The New Zealand native and former oil industry engineer doesn't have any qualms about using his 540-horsepower craft to tout cleaner energy. It's all about visibility, he says, and the boat certainly has that. It measures 78 feet long and has a needlenose bow and curved pontoons that make it look more like a Star Wars prop than a powerboat. But the design isn't for show: The pointed bow allows the craft to pierce waves instead bobbing over them and a travel at a more constant speed than regular powerboats, saving time and energy.

Bethune is showing off the boat on a six-month tour of North American ports. His message is it's easy to be environmentally friendly, even in the ostentatious world of powerboating.

"I don't want to encourage conspicuous consumption," he says of huge powerboats. "I'm keen to see the boating industry become a lot greener. But we're not anti-fun and you don't have to become a hermit" and shun life's pleasures to protect the environment, he says.

Biodiesel benefits
Ethanol fuel, which is typically made from corn or sugar, has gotten most of the renewable energy spotlight in recent months because it can run in gasoline engines.

But Bethune, 41, wants to show that biodiesel is a good match for boats, which often have diesel engines.

Miguel Llanos / MSNBC.com The Earthrace boat runs on biodiesel, unlike the cruise ship seen looming over it, which like most marine vessels uses diesel -- a fossil fuel with much higher emissions of carbon dioxide.

While emissions of smog-forming nitrogen oxide can be slightly higher with biodiesel than with diesel, emissions of particulate matter, a possible carcinogen, and carbon dioxide, a gas many scientists tie to global warming, are greatly reduced.

Biodiesel also smells better. "Certainly more palatable than diesel," Bethune says of the exhaust from his boat's two huge engines. Most of the time.

Some biodiesel is made from animal fat, producing what the crew describes as a rank slaughterhouse smell. But most is made from soybeans, for a smell the sailors liken to "fish and chips with a bit of diesel."

Bethune runs 100 percent biodiesel in the engines, but advises other boaters to use a blend of up to 25 percent so they don't run into problems from poorly filtered biodiesel that could gunk up engines. That's the same advice often given to owners of diesel cars. Boaters should also be warned that manufacturers are reluctant to warranty their engines if more than 5 percent biodiesel is used, although that is changing as biodiesel gains acceptance.

Debt strategy
Promoting biodiesel has been the easiest part of Bethune's adventure. The hardest has been finding money.

Bethune and his motley crew of volunteers scramble at every stop looking for sponsors, even hitting up curious passers-by for $5 donations to help pay the bills.

"Getting cash was really tough and we were very, very poor at it," says Bethune. Of the $3 million spent on the boat so far, about half has come from sponsors providing equipment, services or fuel. The other half is personal debt, much of it cash Bethune got by refinancing the family home three times.

Miguel Llanos / MSNBC.com Pete Bethune gets ready to do some repair work on a hydraulic line inside one of the pontoons that stabilize his biodiesel boat at high speeds.

"We were on a knife's edge" last December, he recalls, until a Dubai-based friend from his oil days came through with a $100,000 loan.

That was enough to get the tour started, first around New Zealand, then to Hawaii, Vancouver and now the U.S. West Coast.

But there's no money to pay the four crewmen — adventurers like Ryan Heron, 23, who shelved pursuing a career as a film cameraman to videotape the journey and finding someone to underwrite a documentary.

"I slowly got suckered into the team," he says with a smile. "But the trip itself is pretty cool."

What the team really lacks is a sugar daddy — a rich boating aficionado, someone like billionaire Paul Allen. "It's hard meeting guys like that," Bethune says. "We sometimes get a friend of a friend of a rich guy but that channel has always broken down."

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