Team 11th Hour Racing

Following up on the most recent post: The recently started 11th Hour Racing program, in collaboration with Sailors for the Sea, helps encourage and support “sustainable practices on the water and at the regattas in which 11th Hour Racing team participates. Winning these regattas, and through localized education and promotion, this project will practice conscientious behavior and ocean stewardship, and will serve as a catalyst to promote and propagate this attitude.”

Leading by example on both the scoreboard and with environmentally sensitive behavior, Team 11th Hour Racing encourages regattas and competitors to go green. Any event or team can choose to meet environmental standards such as removing plastic water bottles and sailing to the race course instead of using the engine. Certain events, like ocean racing campaigns, offer larger-scale programs such as using biodiesel, solar panels or hydrogenerators.

Since Team 11th Hour Racing kicked off last October at the J/24 worlds (which was won by an 11th Hour Racing Team), the program has seen great response from all kinds of programs, events and boats. Earlier this month Team 11th Hour’s J/24 team of John Mollicone, Geoff Becker, Tim Healy, and Dan Rabin won the 2011 J/24 Pan Am Trials and will go on to represent the United States at the 2011 Pan American Games in October. This 11th Hour Racing team and others help “connect organizations with good information on how to develop a more responsible relationship with the world's water, energy and resources.”

Though Team 11th Hour Racing is a young program, they are already having a noticeable environmental impact. Future plans include growing the team, getting involved in major top-level racing events and starting other projects such as adding environmental guidelines to the rules that govern racing. With all this, it’s possible that Clean Regattas may become the norm in the not-too-distant future.

Look at more about Team 11th Hour Racing at http://sailorsforthesea.org/programs-and-projects/team-11th-hour-racing.aspx.