Bouwe Bekking, skipper of Team Brunel, is not impressed with what he has seen in Asian waters. His focus is the amount of garbage witnessed during the Volvo Ocean Race leg from Abu Dhabi to Sanya. Here he reports…
When sailing along the Indian coast, there was so much plastic in the water that I started counting in several intervals of 10 minutes, for a duration of four hours (to get a good average), the amount of plastic what I could see floating by.
A scary result was the outcome. Every 37 seconds I saw a piece floating by, either big or small, but I cannot imagine what the outcome would be if I could see all the smaller pieces too. Plus I am only able to see 50 meters to windward side of the boat, so my survey is only covering a tiny bit of the ocean. I am not a scientist or researcher, but the total weight of this rubbish floating around in this part of the world must be enormous.
