Hydrogen fuel cell technology will be used to power the propulsion and electronic systems aboard Class 40 OceansLab, which will be tested and evolved for application to a 60ft IMOCA – planned for build next year.
Credit Olivier Blanchet Photographie
As a leading offshore sailor, Sharp is using his sailing campaign to demonstrate how commercial maritime transportation can shift to clean systems with zero carbon emissions.
Over 90% of globally-traded goods are currently transported across the world’s oceans by some 90,000 ships. These produce 3% of the world’s CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, 13% of global sulphur oxide emissions and 15% of global nitrogen oxide emissions.
The Global Maritime Forum has identified, through research studies conducted by Lloyd’s Register and UMAS, the importance of hydrogen as a pathway to the decarbonisation of shipping, and the imminent requirement for scalable demonstration projects. OceansLab is one of these much-needed first-adopters for taking hydrogen offshore, to accelerate developments through technical analysis and learning through round-world races like the fully-crewed Ocean Race in 2021-22 and the solo classic, Vendée Globe round-the-world race in 2024-25.
“The sooner we start acting and accelerating the uptake of clean technologies, the sooner we can find solutions to reduce our footprint to reduce damage done in the long run.
“Looking at the statistics and the predictions for global warming due to man-made carbon emissions, it’s very scary. There is a big need for policy change but also increased development through the prototyping of technical solutions that we can embrace globally.” Sharp said.