IMOCA skippers will be involved on the next Vendée Globe for a better ocean understanding
New micro-profiling floats – the floats equipped with ALAMO Seabird and RBR CDT technology, designed and manufactured by MRV Systems in the US – will be used by skippers IMOCA Ocean Masters in the next Vendée Globe 2016. This new technology allows scientists to record data on the salinity, pressure and temperature of the water at various depths up to 1,200 meters.
The mainsails of IMOCA60, competing on the New York-Vendée (Les Sables d’Olonne) all displayed colors of this new partnership for the oceans.
Ambitious collaboration between oceanographers and skippers successfully tested in the Barcelona World Race 2014
Cooperation between UNESCO IOC and the skippers started in the Barcelona World Race 2010, with a participating boat equipped with measuring instruments, and was extended in 2014 to eight riders who filed Argo floats in South Atlantic to return temperature and salinity data from these remote oceans.
Offshore racing skippers venture in very remote oceans where few sailors dared attend. The Roaring Forties, between the 40th and 50th parallel in the southern hemisphere, are feared by sailors because of their established strong winds, predominantly from the West. Because there is less land masses to break the sea and slow them, the winds are particularly violent and seas are very rough. Hence the interest to deploy tags from there to better understand the phenomena of interaction between ocean and climate change.
With this first successful cooperation, the 30 skippers in the IMOCA class decided at the 21st edition of the COP in December 2015 to participate with their boat to the data collection project in 5 races in the IMOCA Ocean World Championship Masters around the globe.
Better forecast about climate change on the planet, carbon-free
Each ship will be equipped with a standard environmental pack as necessary for scientific and oceanography research, without representing any obstacle to the performance of these racing yachts. The data collected are indispensable for scientific research, will give important forecast about changing global climate and will help to better understand interactions between oceans and climate. The Southern Ocean plays a critical role in the process of global warming by absorbing regular amounts of CO2, thus regulating the climate of the entire planet.
The commitment of the IMOCA racing yachts will fill many gaps in areas of utmost importance for climate research and without carbon emissions.
