Welcome back to the Clean Sailors podcast. Let's talk about sea, marine, sailing and
keeping it clean. I'm your host Holly, founder of Clean Sailors and a sailor myself with
a passion for the health of our mighty oceans. Through conversations with experts, innovators
and activists, all working towards improving the health of ICs, we're showcasing the people
and projects, changing the way things are done.
End of life boats. With an estimated 30,000 tons of composite waste from old boats being
discarded in European landfills annually, we know this continues to be an issue or an
opportunity. I'm joined by Jerome Watts, former champion sailor and now composite
revolutionist on the environmental impact of composite materials and how, through his
company, Exo Technologies, he's looking at the state of art solutions to address the
problem.
Jerome, thanks so much for joining me.
And thank you Holly for contacting me.
Firstly, let's talk about your life as a champion sailor. Why sailing and where did that start
for you?
My sailing actually started when I was really young. My grandparents lived on a lake near
Gouda where the cheese is from. You always call it Gouda, but it's Gouda. And there's
11 lakes around and I always sold the boat sailing when I was at my grandparents, always
with binoculars, like, wow, this is what I want to do. Just got it. Just something, you
know, it's a little, little boy just want to do it.
So I started actually very early with sailing and been on dinghy smaley at that time and
start to grow slowly to keel boats, to racing actually. So it's been dominating my entire
life sailing. That's what it is.
When you grow with teams, you go at a certain point, you are jumping and an event, you know,
you're always standing on the on the on the key, just like if you need to crew, I'm there,
you know, just 12, 13 year old boy jumping up and down. And there's always somebody who
needs a crew because someone is not available. So you just jump in and do all the jobs you
can do.
Very opportunistic. I like that. And what are some of the coolest boats that you've sailed
on? What have you seen?
That's a good question. In 2004, I did a race from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro, which I
never did. I never did Friends Atlantics. I did a lot of offshore and I was in Cape
Town in 2003. So the start and together with a couple of friends, we said, next edition
we're going to do this. This is such a cool thing to do. 4,000 knots, comals, what an
adventure this will be.
So we started to campaign this whole thing, this idea. And we got about for free from a
company who was building racing lots and said, can you win? So sure, we can win. Absolutely
all the absolutely no idea. So, okay, we know that we can get to the other side. That's
not a problem. But we had a couple of teams. One of my friends, he was many times a world
champion on the laser, did three with Red Round the Worlds. And not stupid people, but
everything works when you're a team. And as well, the most weird kind of all walks of
life. But what we did is we combined that all, compared to the money to a good go, we
had a yacht, we had everything sorted. We started to do fundraising and we donated all
that money to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. It's 100% of the money because we thought,
we are here like a couple of Europeans in South Africa, where kids can't go to school.
There's still a lot of problems and you still to the other side of the world for a hobby
on a very expensive yacht. It doesn't feel really right. So that's what we did. We won
the race more luck than wisdom to be fair, honest. But okay, we won. It took us 20 days.
And when we were in Rio, people asked me, do you want to do it again? Yeah, absolutely.
But not 20 days because well, 20 days is a long time. As you know, 20 days on a boat
is pretty boring. Ocean racing is not always, you see all this heroic movies from the Volvo
Ocean Race or now the Ocean Race or Immacast. You know, the cameras goes on when it's really
blowing, but in general 70% is clubbed conditions. You know, but it's fast, but it can be faster.
So when I came back to Rio, from Rio, I gave up my corporate job, started my own company,
put all the money I've saved into development of a new yacht and want to beat the record,
which I did. I wanted to make the boat really big. And I want to make 4550 boat 50 feet
racing yacht. And I did it all with a very well known naval architect with all my ideas.
But then you see the quotes on material costing and you see the quotes on design and things.
So every week, it became a meter shorter this boat. So the end was 37 feet with a tiller
and people in the newspaper in Cape Town, they were writing, there's a little dinghy
participating in the race. I thought it was like a laser dinghy, small little thing, but
it was exceptionally fast. And from the start, we just poof, we're first over the line at
the start. And from that moment, no, we didn't see anyone anymore. We nailed the record in
16 days from Cape Town to Rio. And that's a record which still stands today. It was 2006.
So no boat under 40 feet ever has beaten that record. That's the coolest boat I've ever
sailed on.
Not least because it was yours too, right?
There's an emotional twist in it. There's cooler boats have been sailing on. No, I've
sailed on a Volvo Vio 70. When it comes to a boat, you constantly say, you have an idea,
you're at, you start to create it, you start to develop it, you start to build it, you
start to make this whole thing, start to go to a dream you want to do. And you nail it.
That's the coolest boat I've ever done. I think it's still going. It's still in Antigua right
now.
She does. In fact, I believe I saw her when I was there. It's incredible, Joan. Also,
not least because let's just go back to the first time you did the Cape to Rio and being
from South Africa myself, I appreciate a couple of things that you were talking about and
not least time for on that races, particularly because as Europeans, we're very used to going
from the north of the Atlantic and using the winds that way. And obviously it's inverted
somewhat when you're doing the Southern Atlantic passage. So very cool. And I love this sort
of confidence and the, okay, we'll get the free boat and you will get to the other side.
Of course, we'll win. And then obviously do it again, but having built something which
I can only imagine the sort of emotional attachment to go through the whole process, as you said,
about designing and producing this vessel that was ultimately going to carry you, but
also really going to carry a record at the same time was pretty incredible. But it's
incredibly interesting given that your background in sailing and obviously boat building and
naval architecture, how then did you result in this deep interest and current passion
and skill for composites and actually looking at the materials themselves with which boats
are made?
That's a good question because you know, you work for 17 years with composite. That's
what I did build yachts for 17 years. And you work with composite on a daily basis.
You know, you build these boats in Siri production actually, and you see two things health and
safety. You see these people on the floor, all working with glass, mask, things, stuff.
You have styrenes in their resins. You've got boric acid in the fiberglass. And the more
you're going to read about it, and the more you're going to learn about it is that this
boydream what you do, you know, you just have to build one boat and you start thinking,
God, that's cool. Let's make more. And it's 650 or something. You just can't go on like
that because at a certain point when awareness becomes a concern, they become a hypocrite
just to keep on going on. You just can't turn a blind eye anymore. So you can say, well,
let's develop something. But in the meantime, run another company that doesn't work like
that. You know, because it what you need to have 100% focus on what you want to achieve.
So I stopped the boat building thing. I sold that whole operation, moved to the island man
actually, this night and bounce it to my partner who lives on the island. What's the small
place is 85,000 people, you know, just the dots are connected really quick. And I was
already working on a sustainable alternative for fiberglass. It's difficult. It's not automatically,
but if you want to have something which is sustainable, so free of all toxics and nonsense,
free of styrene, free of BPA, this Bisfalol A, we can pick that up later because that's
a scary thing, which is an all composite materials, boric acid in fiberglass name. It's just like
a lot of toxic stuff, which just dump and landfill at the end of life. You know, just
bury it away. You just can't do with it. Nothing with it. So to make something sustainable,
to make something actually circular, so that means that if you recycle it, you can reuse
it forever because carbon fiber nowadays can be recycled. But every time you recycle it,
it loses about 20, 25% of the mechanical properties that becomes weaker. So for example,
this desk where I'm sitting on, if you make this out of carbon fiber, you make something
inferior after the end of life. So we came up with down a composite, or I, to be honest,
I came up with down composite, which is natural based, exceptionally strong, and you can recycle
it forever. We did three years of R&D before we actually went to the market. So we did
all the laboratory testing with Lloyd's DNV accredited laboratories. And when the first
results came out, we were like absolutely baffled because first of all, it's not expensive.
Now you can make boats out of it, just same price as glass fiber. So we have a daughter
company making power boats. We are in Glasgow right now. So it's quite banks not far away
from Glasgow. They make these boats all in this material up till the whole deck structure,
wheelhouse, seats, dashboard is all made out of that. And it's so strong and you save quite
a lot of weight. So where we initially start to develop this material for boat building
and solve the global problem of boats again of life, which we did, we thought, okay, this
is so strong, we can do much more with it. So we do, well, I showed you off record something
which is on my desk, which I can't show that unfortunately, but this one of the super cool
project I did. And we did projects on ballistic so it stops bullets, we did projects, we do
the project for high speed trains right now, we do projects for most probably a racing
boat, I'm going to develop with it. Because for a racing yacht, you save weight tremendously.
It's not as strong as carbon fiber, don't get me wrong, you know, if you you sell the
Volvo 70, I think you sell Telefonica was it in the RORX 600 if I'm correct. Yes, so
remember it. That's something you cannot make out of my material. You can, but you won't
break a record with it. It's too heavy, because that's a No Max carbon fiber, No Max core
prepreg. The weight and stiffness ratio is you just can't reach it. But when it comes
to let's say up to 40 feet, we have something extraordinary. So all these niche kind of
things for me, the one spoilers will be difficult. But everything which is the safe fiber glass
or close to carbon fiber properties, we have an answer for a very reasonable price. For
example, a boat I've built and said, well, imagine this holds 280 kilos, imagine it will
be lighter, stiffer and doesn't affect your IRC rating because the moment you are having
a carbon fiber or deck or master and everything under IRC, your rating goes through the roof.
This is just the same price as glass fiber, you save about 20, 25% of the weight of a
boat and you don't get penalized on your IRC. Okay, all the weight you have a penalty
because you have a speeded phone, but not as heavy as carbon. They have an affordable
boat. So it's not so bad.
And then see to your point around, okay, it might not work on the caliber of boats such
as the VO 70s, but the majority of the market sits well below that. Most of our boats globally
and nowhere near that spec nor need they be, thankfully, given the general skillset and
comparison to the, I will say this for sure, we'll be having a lot of crazy accidents.
But importantly, why is it that traditional composites or let's say GRP FRP construction
is so outdated now from what it actually is made of life issue?
When fiberglass came out, it was just like the paperback, you know, the certain part
was that the paperback was bad for the environment because you have to cut trees and that and
then become a plastic bag and everybody needs to have a plastic bag. And now everybody's
start to realize that plastic bag was not a good idea. And it's the same with fiberglass,
you know, there's so much stuff we don't know. I always call it the asbestos of our
time, you know, it was cheap, it was light, it's resistant, it's name it, it has all
the benefits. But gosh, you speak with people work in shipyards, they don't have a smell
for the styrenes and everything. Their whole nose is gone. It creates a lot of health problems.
It's no end of life solution. So everything when you keep on building, building, building
if you do one, two, three, four, five pine. But if you make hundreds and thousands just
boats or wind turbines and name it out of this material, that end of life, you absolutely
know what they were to do with it. Well, if you stop one boat in the landfill, we'll have
an ecological or bad effect. No, not really. Well, to wind energy, for example, do you
know how much wind turbines will end in a landfill between today and 2050 globally?
Guess.
I'm guessing a lot given we're erecting more and more and more of the year on year.
Guess.
In 40,000,000 tons. So there's 43 billion kilograms.
Wow.
That's just unacceptable. That's unethical. I'm trying here as well. The island man,
we tried to do a wind farm on shore here on the island, which I'm not automatically against,
but bear in mind that at the end of life, what you do with these blades? Are we bearing
it here in our hills? It's here in escrow biosphere. Then we put all these toxic in the
ground. Not a good idea. We have a solution for that. It's not that I want to sell my
innovation. I really don't care, but I care about the island. I care about the environment.
What are you going to do to set it and bury it in the desert in Tunisia? It's unethical.
We need to stop that instantly. There's not only me. Luckily, we have the only solution
in the market space, which is actually circular. You keep your materials in the economy and
out of landfill. From the boat you're talking about, you can make a wind turbine blade out
of it and life on the wind turbine blade. That's out of it. I'm from my desk. You make
another boat out of it, so you use it. That's a big benefit. I think just on a total aspect,
circular economy is something unavoidable. We plunder more than the earth can regenerate
at this moment. At the same time, we're just like Thelma and Louise in all movies before
your time. You're driving your six gears straight down the cliff. That's what we're actually
doing. As long as everything goes well, you don't see it and you don't feel it in your
wallet and everything is all right, then it's very hard to break through. That's one of
the problems we face. Not in the yachting industry. Let's say this, because the yachting
industry is very conservative. We are the only one at the ultimate boats who are just building
all these boats in this material and we get business out of that just by doing something
different.
Better. When you say the boating industry is conservative, what do you mean?
Conservative for change. As long as things work and as long as you're happy with it and
as long as nobody complains about it, there's no legislations or taxes or things and it
just works and your business goes well, then why should you change? The only reason to
do this is for ecological reasons out of a concern. But as long as you're not concerned,
you got awareness and concern what I talk about. For example, climate change, people
are aware of it, but think, well, I'm aware of it, but I don't care because it's nice
and 40 degrees in Switzerland, I'm having my drink. When people get concerned, they say,
well, I'm concerned, but there's a lot of big brains about taking care of it. You need
to get a sort of a movement which moves people to go so you can go to demand to say that
people want only a boat which can be recycled. Then there's a lot of education there as well.
I think the education is there, big key and taxes and legislations. For example, if I
fill up my car with fuel, I pay a lot of tax on that. If somebody buys a bottle of whiskey,
you pay a lot of tax on that because it's unhealthy. These kinds of things need to be
taxed at a certain point. You just can't avoid it anymore. When you get tax weavers on an
electric car, which is not automatically smart, but it's another subject, then it's just
nothing moves. That's the point. Comfort is the biggest enemy of progress. That's how
it is. So as long as you're comfortable, why should you innovate? Why should your progress?
Why should you make a change? Why should you do it? It's a difficult thing. As long as
somebody is really concerned or really says, this is a solution, we really want to adapt
because it fits our future and it fits our ESG pledges and so on. Perfect.
It has to operate as a business. We were talking about businesses here. So why disrupt your
whole model of being unless there's a really good reason why you have to? Unfortunately,
I say unfortunately and it does often make business sense why the case, but shifting
on moral and ethical grounds often isn't enough to move a whole industry or industries towards
something different. I mean, to your point around concern, because it's an interesting
one, right? There's a difference between being aware, being concerned and then also taking
action on it. And an important element is obviously we're knowing now more than we ever
have done on most topics from climate change to medicine to whatever else, but importantly
on things like GRP and FRP, coating, let's say, or even wind turbines. So relatively
recently in say 2022, so just two years ago with the University of Brighton in particular,
we're starting to understand the contamination in the water of marine species associated with
these E-type fragments. So these FRPs and GRPs, these little glass fragments, which
we're embedding themselves into obviously a variety of marine creatures. And you've
called it asbestos, like it's exactly the sort of narrative and factual narrative that's
actually now being discussed more openly around the impact that our traditional materials
here are having on not just wildlife, but also on ourselves. So I appreciate that the
environment or fast generating ecosystems like cetaceans or shellfish can be quite good
indicators and they obviously regenerate very quickly. So we can be looking at them
as good kind of proxies to what our materials and pollutants are doing. But we know now
that there are, you know, things like these glass fibers are having tumors and cancers
and inflammation effects on them. That's without us having extensive research on the human
body and the impact that these fibers are having on us, whether it's people who are
working with them daily. And this is not to be scaremongering rather factual. Unfortunately,
it took some really graphical studies around plastics and the fact that we found them in
breast milk, we found them in fetuses, we found them in testes, you know, before we actually
started looking at plastics and microplastics with a similar lens. So it feels like it's
only a matter of time. But the question is, is obviously what then do we shift to? Because
it's all well and good saying we can't use that anymore, we're going to have to legislate
or tax it. But we also need solutions. So how have you approached this design question
around composites differently to what we've currently got?
Well, I like your introduction a lot because you know, it is found in the food chain and
all these kind of things are a concern for my behalf. But when I started to develop this
solution, the point is, it needs to be superior to fiberglass, you know, there's something
which is so strong, I just say, wow, you know, because sustainability still has a sort of
cute, sweet, weak kind of error around it, you know, when it's sustainable, cannot be
that strong, is it? You need to have something which is considerably stronger, which is almost
a nonbrainer, you know, so when you use it, you use less material, you save weight, you
make a stronger proposition, you can recycle it forever, and you don't have all the toxics
in it. To innovate something like that, the end is extremely simple. But to take all these
boxes was the most most difficult thing ever, because you can create something which is
sustainable, but you can't recycle it. So you got sort of natural fibers, which you
see that there's a lot of things coming up right now, you see that around on social media
and everything in silver. It's actually really beautiful. The finishing is a extraordinary
well, but you can't recycle it because these fibers, they absorb quite a lot, you can separate
materials, you dump them in landfill, which is a good step forward, but you're not there
yet. So in order to make something which is sustainable and recyclable and affordable,
economically viable, that's something which is kind of a difficult thing. We have a global
patent on this technology, which is actually really cool, but it is difficult to tick all
these boxes. And as well, my team, we've never been satisfied. Never. Like this can be better.
We need to be better. We have to think different. This is not good enough. This is good is the
biggest enemy of perfect. It's good, but it's not perfect. Let's go on. Let's go on. Let's
go on more testing, more testing. And the end result is something which is perfect. It's
not to preach out of my old church, because you know, your own child is always the most
beautiful and the smartest and so on and so on. But this is actually, it just works perfect.
It's just how it is. I'm extremely proud of it. If you say champion sailor and all the
things on transatlantic offshore and all the stuff, you know, I think no doubt this is
the coolest thing I've ever done in my life.
He says that waving a black stick at me. What was it you were showing there to us?
This was something in this ballistic panels, 12 mil thick, and we did ballistic tests with
it for MOD so you can shoot actually bullet stops so you can mold in any shape so you
can do it in automotive parts so you can the impact resistant is outstanding. So we do
quite a lot of stuff on impact resistance as well. And that's something you go along
the line. And that's I think that's the coolest thing of a startup, which we are. Well, we're
maybe going a little bit over the stage right now being a starter, but like I said, we did
it for boats. I thought, okay, that's cool. And I thought, hmm, that's strong. We can
do something with wind. Oh, that feels strong. Maybe it stops a bullet. Well, why don't we
test it? Okay. And you start to test it, you start to develop and stops bullets. And it's
all tested independently by laboratories in the United States and laboratories in the
United Kingdom up till big brains in Germany who tested it and all according we got all
the coding and proof and everything done. And then you enter other industries, you enter
other other areas. So for example, the thing that got on my desk as you cannot share it,
but that's a helmet, something we did ourselves. Okay, well, it stops bullets and you have
here the out of men TT. So well, we're CT elements are or composite. So why don't we
make a helmet out of it? So we did and it passed all the tests. So you constantly go
to sort of steps to live rough containers, they'll name it, we did all these tests we
passed and all the things we do. But the biggest breakthrough is always into something which
is how do you say it's like a tier one player, these things that take a long time, you know,
we do we work with only big industries. And these are the processor always slower than
you do on a small scale business. But then you have a breakthrough, which just blows
off the off the skill, which is great.
It's very, very, very cool. And I think that's what excites me the most about talking to
people such as yourself is the process of, let's say the invention and the iteration.
I mean, think of Sir James Dyson now that you know, revolutionized vacuum cleaner, and
it took 7000 prototypes to get to the vacuum cleaner that was actually viable and usable
and domestic environment. You know, this isn't done overnight. And I think that's why it's
such exceptional technology, not least because you're doing it with that high performance
mindset of this isn't yet good enough. This is nowhere near good enough, even if it's
getting better, just striving for that ultimate aim. Because I mean, ultimately, as you mentioned,
this isn't an opportunity to revolutionize just the marine industry and move talking
3040 million registered boats on the planet, let alone everyone that isn't registered,
plus aviation plus high speed rail plus clean energy. I mean, there are huge, huge markets
which are relying on materials such as this to be more reliable, to be more circular.
And also as you rightly mentioned, to be economically viable in the process.
Yeah, that's a difficult thing because when you talk to big industries, they say there's
a lot of assumptions around you need to take these assumptions away. So we're somewhere
you say, well, there's not a strong, well, I can tell you, it is really strong because
we've got here something which is just a strip of two mil thick, which is nothing. It's like
a lollipop stick. The weight you can hang on that lollipop stick is 11 tons. So that's
four range offers you can hang for range over a little and then people say, wow. And then
so what that must be very expensive. No, it's not. It's not actually not expensive. It's
actually really affordable because we have a patent on technology. We're not supplier
of resins and fibers. We don't really don't care. We are a technology company and these
materials are off the shelf. We own a patent on the recipe. That's what we have. So for
big industries, there's no supply chains industries. For example, we talk to big companies to
say, well, you're just a small little company on the island man. We're not, we're not a
small company while we're on the island man, but we're not that but we're not vestos energy,
you know, these winter, I think, but they buy the materials themselves. They pay a license
on the technology. Or that's where we go. We go now for the next step. We are now, but
that's a little bit cannot say so much about it. We're now in the process of going to produce
ourselves these materials. So we're going to go on a wider scale and produce this as
a OEM producer for other companies. So we go upscale production on not only boats, but
as well on other things.
You mentioned a very important phrase there, which I liked, which was you've got to remove
the assumptions. It made me think how much we approach life with assumptions, consciously
or subconsciously, which obviously hinder our progression or perhaps developmental thinking
outside of the proverbial box a bit better. Honestly, my assumption is that having a truly
forever recyclable material sounds pretty impossible because let's take the second law
of thermodynamics number one, something has always got to be lost in the process, right?
But also there must be an incredibly energy or chemical intensive process through which
the material has to go in order to be recreated into something new. What are you looking in
that process? Something presumably, but you're also having to put it under quite an intensive
energy process in itself, no?
Not automatically. That's not so bad. I like your question because it really depends on
the purpose or for example, if you recycle one, it's a motorcycle helmet that makes no
sense. That says absolutely makes no sense. It's too expensive, makes no sense. It's
all stupid. A circular economy only works when the virgin materials are more expensive
than the recycle materials and just as strong. That's when it works. For example, lithium
plundered all around can be recycled, but the recyclable process is so expensive that you
just throw it away and buy a new Tesla battery anyway. So that's one of the problems we face.
For, let's say, surfboards, helmets, smaller parts, name it. We do even something for shower
trays right now, medical flooring systems here on the island man with this material.
So that already indicates it's not super expensive, but it needs quite a lot of compression because
it's for special medical things, but they sell us ruined. So these things are very easy
to recycle. And as long as you bulk it up, they recycle it and then becomes economically
viable. The moment you are taking a yacht, then it becomes difficult because you have
to cut it up. You try to get your fibers back in there because that's the trick. You get
your fiber, as if you do by axle or you need a reaction or quadraxial in a mold, you can
recycle it such a way that you just can get everything back as you put it in. That's not
too good to be true. That's actually true. We did it with an independent laboratory.
So for example, this, let's say, take this as a lollipop stick, we said we made one panel
as a batch to test it until it breaks. So to bend it and to stretch it, it was all done
by a laboratory in the UK. They broke it. They got all the data, so much stretch, so
much flexure. From the same batch, what we made, they recycled that panel because you
cannot, the thing was all broken up and twisted and broken and was all beaten up, so it's
all broken up. From the same batch, they recycled that panel, they made a new panel out of it
and they tested it again and the results are identically strong. Identical. We invested
quite a lot of money on these kind of results and to prove independent testing. It's all
DNV accredited, Lloyd's accredited that stamped off laboratory reports where we actually
show circularity. But you were saying it has to be done with relatively unadulterated
material. Maybe we are a little bit ahead of the future. Our slogan of extra technologies
innovating in the future. I had a call with a naval architect and he came with the question,
how can you recycle this boat? I said, well, that's a very good question because at this
moment it will be difficult. You can recycle it, but it will be very expensive for big
vessel for smaller parts like as it surfboards, easy helmets, easy name it, which is all you
need to start at something with an innovation which is there. For example, the PET bottle
was a recyclable bottle when they launched it, but nobody could recycle it. Now everybody
can recycle it. These recycle companies who are now jumping into let's say the big wind
energy sector, for example, they try to get now these wind turbine blades recycled. These
companies are now growing like you can't believe. When you can recycle 120 meter wind turbine
blade, well, you can recycle a boat. That's not so difficult anymore. These companies
are now getting there. They're going to develop it. In order to create the feed with demand,
if you stop that, if you say, for example, okay, recycle the boat, and only say, well,
yeah, we can, but it will be expensive. And you say, well, I know, I stay with fiberglass.
Okay, I will stay with fiberglass. Okay. So then there's no growth in other sectors in
order to get this thing moving. The wind energy sector is leading yet they do it still in
fiberglass. They still have fiberglass and that loses mechanical properties. So you can
recycle this wind turbine blade, but you dump it in the tarmac road or something as well.
The content of BPA is in this material. Nobody actually knows how much BPA, but do you know
what BPA is? It's a bisphenol A. And it's in every epoxy or vinyl ester resin. It creates
a sort of stability in your resins. Just one kilogram of that stuff. Do you know how much
water that can contaminate? Guess. I'm guessing thousands of Olympic swimming pools kind of
of water. It's the size of one big drinking reservoir here on the elements, 10 billion
liter. That's huge. 10 billion liter, put two pints of beer in it and you cannot drink
it anymore. That's all this material. That means that if you bury it in landfill, it
remains very stable. You know, it won't leak out unless you got a variety of temperatures
which have here on the island. Man, for example, a lot of sometimes it's warm. Sometimes it's
really cold. When the temperature gets unstable, this might leak out and then it comes in drinking
water and it comes exactly as you say with the turns in the food chain.
Okay, you've developed the recipe, a combination of ingredients which resulted in this product
which is very lightweight, very strong, et cetera, et cetera. And at the moment, we haven't
large scale formal recycling solutions or facilities to deal with that. Therefore, it's on the wider
industry, governments, councils, everything as a whole and other clever brains to come
up with a way in which that is a scalable recycling facility for such materials. How
much responsibility do you place or should we place on the producer of the materials
to come up with a recycling solution?
Well, that's a good question because if I was a CEO, I would change everything because
I'm not automatically an eco warrior. I wouldn't call myself that. But I did so much reading
and so much study that if you don't do that, if you're not, let's say, of a sincere concern,
the biggest problem where we face right now is that you have the greenwashing movements.
You see, there was a certain point, a Swedish brand, don't follow them constantly because
I asked them some questions and it was blocked on social media, which was just a very kind
question. I know I'm Dutch, we are very direct, but it was actually tried to be in a polite
kind of way. They're selling a sustainable story. And actually, my sister came up, hey,
this is a sustainable boat. I said, okay, that's cool. Wow. Let's see it. So it's not
a sustainable boat. It always a fiberglass boat. The battery is not sustainable. The
whole boat is not sustainable. It's a sustainable story. I'm living and breathing this story
on this topic every single day. But when you're a consumer, you will jump into something
which is just a polluted piece of junk. And there's where education comes. And that's
where, for example, the demand to the market needs to come. I've been at a certain point
flagging up with British Marine, for example, it didn't get me any further, which is kind
of frustrating. Get a label on it. Do a survey on it. You got your ISO, you got your C certification,
you got your the Enveloids Register certifications. Why not a green label? Why not the green certification?
Bang, this is a real green boat. As long as you don't do these kind of things, then who
cares? But when you take a step back and really make a change towards sustainability and put
a example, you can't tell your children to eat fruit and take a bite of hamburger yourself
from McDonald's. You can't. You need to set an example, especially sports, sports people,
or sports events that are the movements which can create that change. Because only you know
it as well. When you watch the ocean race like you do or the IMOCA series, and the things are
going 35 knots or they go 30 knots. Can you see the difference on the camera? I just see a lot
of water flying over the boat. I cannot really judge how fast it goes, but it's bloody impressive.
And that same impressive thing, you still can reach with our innovation. And that there's
room in improvement to make it lighter, stiffer, maybe with Bill Katzen stringers and things to
make it a little bit smarter. Then you create or set a benchmark, you set an example for where
you want to be. You cannot sell a sustainable story and put a full carbon racing yaw in the water.
Whether you like it or not, because I love these boats, but I don't like them. I think somebody
needs to set the benchmark. Somebody needs to have the guts to say, I'm done with it. We're
stopping this. There's an innovation available. It's on my desk. They can test it. I don't ask
a cent for the research and development. Just ask me what we do. Test it yourself. Try to break it.
Try to whatever you do with it. Ask me for the leopard board, some sending it. And let's make
a change, a positive change. I think the carbon point is an exceptional one and probably warrants
its own separate topic, podcast, conversation, features, articles, the lot, because unfortunately,
despite its excellence in terms of lightweightness and strength, it's probably one of the worst
materials we could be using at scale to develop boats for a myriad of reasons, environmental in
particular. But I appreciate it is the material du jour, let's say, and exceptional, however,
definitely short sighted if we are rolling that out more broadly. But on your point, Geron, around
the material itself, do you feel as though the industry is moving fast enough or industries
are moving fast enough? Or do you think it is also the point at which legislation and taxation
now needs to come in to support a truly equal, say, shift away from materials which are demonstrably
damaging to the environment ultimately due to us? France is leading that pathway already. They have
already taxes on everything, it's non recyclable. For example, if you buy a boat, you are going
to pay tax on it because you know they set up these recycle centers already throughout France,
where they just can't recycle automatically the composite materials, but take the winches off
and the wood out and things and stuff. And these recycle plants are already going very quick through
France and are paid by the taxpayers who are buying these boats. So that's already something,
a movement which I support. You shouldn't use that tax money to whatever, to make new roads or
whatever, to do some other stuff. Use that to create recycle facilities, create jobs, create a new
economy to get this movement going. It's actually a very simple thing, it's almost free money.
You can say, well, put 10% on it, you can do it tomorrow and it will be accepted anyway. What are
you going to do? Nothing, you can't do nothing about it. And I think as well for a certain reason,
when companies are not doing it, not changing, the moment you feel it in your wallet, so your
turnover goes down or your profit is going down, that's the moment they will change. Everything
becomes liquid under pressure and that's exactly what needs to be done because as long as you have
not a person who says, we have ESG pledges, we want to make it to lead the pathway to greener
future and doesn't see that, then it makes no sense talking. Europe is leading this in the
north and Europe especially, like the Nellis where I'm from is really pushing these things forward.
I'm pretty proud to be Dutch. Scandinavian countries are doing it really well. So yeah,
you see these movement going and I think that should be an example for the rest of the world.
It should be and I think honestly, sitting here, both of us are sitting in the United Kingdom
having this conversation. It's somewhat disappointing, I find that like many other countries, there are a
lot of brilliant minds, there's a lot of maritime history and a legacy here in the UK. And it's a
real pity, I think, in an industry we haven't shifted fast enough. But as you said, there's
probably not yet enough pressure. And you mentioned something earlier, sometimes, you know,
movements can come from the bottom up. But ultimately, if the general populace doesn't
appreciate the impact that these substances are having, then that movement can't come
as easily from the bottom up. It has to at some point be a top down reaction, which is ultimately
what we're seeing as you've rightly said, in places like Europe and France in particular,
on boat taxation. So if you're buying a new boat in France, you pay the end of life tax ultimately
as the purchaser so that it can be dealt with when it comes to the end of life.
It's a very interesting model, a very clever model. And certainly one which is, you know,
a start like anything, we'll find new novel ways, solutions which make the whole system
work a little bit better. Because as it's a sort of duplicitous issue, we've got the virgin composite
recycling issue opportunities for any kind of byproduct or leftovers from creating new boats,
new wind turbines. That's all virgin material, which isn't easily recyclable,
GRP, or PBITs. And obviously the end of life boats, which are heavily adulterated, as you'll
appreciate 30 years owning a vessel these days, and it's been up an epoxy and vanished and whatever
else. So it's not easily to break apart, nor is it economically viable in most cases.
So it's definitely the very beginning, I should say, feels a little bit somewhat delayed and
postponed increasingly. But I think mines such as yourself and your team and others working in the
industry are genuinely finding opportunities to shift this quite dramatically, not least
for the revolution of new materials to be built with. You mentioned something that's quite interesting
was being able to recycle the sort of bike helmets and surfboards are manageable, but actually the
size of a vessel, perhaps not. I think we forget, however, that take away the hull, as in take away
the ballast effectively, the keel of a boat, and all the, obviously the mast and everything else,
you're talking about a very hollow space, you can crush it down somewhat is actually a lot less
than the actual ultimate size of the boat. So you're 37 foot boat is something akin to two square
meters worth of material, even though it looks a lot larger. So that too surely is taken into
account, thinking about recycling it. It will be, it will be definitely will be possible, possible
at scale, you know, even a bigger boat will be recyclable at scale. Now that's not a problem.
You see this French movement, they say, I think it's called a pair. That's the French company,
which is governmental supported. They stripped about until actually you put to a hull and a deck,
that's it. And at a certain point, they didn't have so much to do with it. So now you see
yours already composite recycling companies say, Hey, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it,
just chop it up and give it to me. Chop it up is one thing transport is not a thing's,
recyclates then another thing. And in the end, you have materials which have to dump away anyway.
And that's the difficult part of it. This you don't throw away. So for example,
the helmet I just showed you, which I cannot show in front of the camera. But for example,
the visor in this helmet will be cut out by water because this thing comes out of one mold.
So you got hundreds and thousands of these visors, which are cut out and thrown away.
These can be recycled and these materials can be back in helmet again, like the color of their
helmet, for example, they're all you put it in a mold, there will be water cut off.
These things you can recycle everything you just bulk it up till you got to a certain amount,
you recycle it, you got your fibers back and you got the rest is back and make helmet out of it.
That's a pretty cool story. And that's like I said, it's actually true. It's possible. It's
on my desk. It's right here. I have seen it. I can attest to anyone listening. I think it also
goes back to the design question, right? We're basing on assumptions. How have we become so
used to assuming there will be waste products when we produce anything rather than approaching the
design question with no waste in mind? I mean, I think there are whole sort of subconscious biases
which we have ingrained in the way that we have arguably thousands and thousands of years produced
things. They're going back to your point of assumptions and I have actually written it down
sort of assumptions because it's worth us challenging ourselves what we're predisposed to
believe. If we're designing our design specifications are waste less than we'll be looking at.
Yeah, definitely. Since the industrial revolution, what we did, we take things from the planet,
we make something out of it, we use it and we throw it away. But in the process of making,
there is also waste. I was just envisaging things visors or I don't know, this hand sanitizer,
this little plastic cap will be laid out as a sheet, which we cut. There'll be margins that are
wasted. There'll be extra bits and pieces that don't go into making this. So in the production
process, there is wasted virgin material too. Exactly. Yeah, you see the boats, for example,
composite boats, it's about 20, you got all the lights in the vacuum if you usually can throw it
away, a lot of resin thrown away, a lot of trim lights is all thrown away. So just, there's a lot
of waste. But the moment you can say there's a waste, you can recycle it. Like for example,
like I said, the helmet, this waste part, you can recycle and use it back in the end material again.
That's something possible. That's actually something I never thought about until I was having a
meeting with one of these guys with who we did the helmet. And that's something I thought, okay,
that's actually not so stupid, because I just thought let's recycle the helmet. So that goes
much further. And then you can see a sort of movement. This is this helmet is not ready yet.
It is ready because it's tested, but needs to go through homologation and all sorts of things.
It takes forever, which is fine. Which is fine. They can making steps by step. But at least that's
something which you create a movement of something who just gets it just wants to lead wants to be
the world's first doing something different. That's really cool to do. Now, Joanne, what's your
ask of the industry? Let's say marine industry more broadly, when it comes to thinking about
end of life and also composites. Trigger me. Prove me I'm wrong. Let's make your life easy.
I can. If you don't care about the planet, then do it for the next generation. If you want to have
something which is just superior to be different to be the world's first to do something out of
extraordinary to lead the pathway to have the answers today for questions you will definitely
get tomorrow the day after tomorrow. Got them here. Trigger me. Just go take me a message on
LinkedIn, whatever, and let's make it happen. I'm not laughing only because I know you and I know
that you're serious. And I also think it would make such a fantastic t-shirt slogan if we all had
to trigger me because it's important. I think it's important also for you to be challenged and
for your teams to be challenged. For anyone who's looking at new solutions, it's really important
to be grilled on the viability of your solution. It's how we all progress.
Yeah, for example, we did the helmet. This is our own initiative, by the way. We just thought,
okay, let's make a helmet. Let's do it. Let's do something like this is a weird kind of thing to
do because with the rocket stops bullets. And that was something like, and as well, especially
my team said to me, you can't do that. My sister always said it to me when I was young, when I
was a little boy, you can't do it. And I always did it, you know, and did it twice. I made a selfie
while you did that selfie that time. The point is, trigger me is exactly this. This thing took me
nights almost to get it right. It's not a simple thing to do to make it within the margins of weight
and thickness and things and stuff to make it happen. And when it works, we tested it. I thought,
bloody hell, this is actually really strong. It just works. So first we did a little panel,
we tested it, well, past. We made eight panels, seven past one didn't, it was ridiculously thin.
Then we said, oh, let's make a helmet out of this. It works. And now we're opening dial up with
helmet manufacturers. Is he like, look, they got something on my desk, maybe something interesting
for you. So now it starts to be picked up. And this whole discussion is going, but this is something
we did all our own initiative. But it I broke my head, 100 on not my head, because it's a helmet,
but it was a lot of thinking to make something as complex as it is within the margins, make it
14% lighter as a race helmet. And it works. So that's why I said, trigger me, throw it on my desk,
and let's make it happen. Just somebody who says, well, interesting, let's contact me,
send me a message on LinkedIn or whatever WhatsApp or an email and throw it on my desk. And let's
see what we can do.
Jeroen Watts, former champion sailor and now composite revolutionist. Thank you so much for
your time today. Really enjoyed the conversation. And the two biggest things I've taken away
personally are that the concept has sort of triggered me, you know, in terms of personal
growth and invention and innovation, very cool way of looking at the world. And also the understanding
of assumptions, how are we approaching things very similarly, even if we believe that we are not.
So thank you again very much for your time. I'm very excited to see what exo technologies and
Danu composites come up with in the coming days and years.
Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
You've been listening to the Clean Sailors podcast. All relevant links to the projects
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