Welcome back to the Clean Sailors podcast. Let's talk about sea, marine, sailing and
keep 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. 97% of all sails end up in landfill.
Sails are strong and durable, made to withstand the Earth's toughest environments. UV light,
water, wind. Made from complex synthetic materials, sails aren't formally recyclable
anywhere in the world and the majority end up in landfill or incineration.
Now we know that old sails can be upcycled into new things, furnishings, bags and now
even fashion garments. But what about the more humanitarian side of things for example? How
can sails be used beyond the everyday? And what are the biggest blockers preventing us
from making them more widespread and with this in mind? I'm joined today by Angela Abashir,
founder of Sail2Shelter and Hailing from California. Hello Angela, nice to see you again. How
are you? Good morning. I'm great. I'm so happy to have time with you. I am so glad that we
finally got to do this because we've had so many conversations where we've ruminated,
had inspired each other and got frustrated and it was an insane opportunity to connect
in the very first place but it's so very important now that we share what we've been talking
about and thinking about with a much wider audience because I think it's interesting
and every time I come away from our conversations I feel incredibly inspired. So thank you for
indulging me by having this as a podcast episode. I'm thrilled to be here. I can't wait for
this conversation. What's happening? So Angela, tell us a little bit about your background
and how you even came about being as interested and as expert as you are in sails. I was
so fortunate living in Southern California to have friends who were racing in Long Beach
to Catalina and there was room on a boat and I've never done anything like that in my life
and I got on a far 40 and that was it. It changed everything for me. It changed from
the minute I got on the boat, every single part of it, every single thing about it and
the sails. So I come from the garment industry. I'm a textile dumpy and then when I started
to ask about like what are we doing with the sails, what happens, where do these go and
then it was just this blank and then I just thought, well, that's, I mean there's sail
bags, lots of people are making great bags but to me it was the size of them. I started
sailing on a big boat. I mean I went straight from looking at sails or occasionally sailing
to being under these massive sails. So it was just look, right? There was no like, oh
we're going to take this little thing and this little thing and we'll work up to it
and then you sort of don't think of it because it's just a piece of an equipment and it's
part of what you use as your tool. That's what happened to me and obviously it's taken
over.
Sould, sealed, delivered. It's really poignant and incredibly pertinent that you say that
in terms of it being a tool. I think we think about that in every day life and certainly
you know a lot of sports and pleasures and pastimes have, you know, whether it's a vehicle
as such as a boat or a car is a composition of a variety of different tools in a way doing
different jobs. They come together to create that finite thing which can be used and enjoyed
and raced as you've experienced. But we're not actually necessarily thinking about those
as individual composite pieces at the end of it and how they can be sort of pulled apart
again and reused or otherwise.
And you mentioned something which I think is really, really cool because I know that
we've made a lot of bags. There's some fantastic things and really cool, fashionable, aesthetically
useful, good looking, furniture, furnishing pieces going around. And yes, it's an opportunity
for end of life in one respect, but it's not obviously the ultimate solution. But as part
of your journey, you actually undertook that element too. You tried that outright because
I remember this fantastic collaboration that you had in New York which was very much around
bringing the material into the mainstream somehow, which was the fashion industry, right? This
is a resource which can transcend a variety of industries and you explored it with fashion
as part of your journey so far. How did that come about?
So the fashion part of my journey is the natural part. That's what I come from. So naturally
I want to use all these things in that space. That particular collaboration was with a really
great sustainable fashion department store in New York City. The hardest part about that
for me was having things made in this country. And part of what I think is the incredible
opportunity with the sale material is the value that it has to create jobs which teach
skills. If you go into any of the sale manufacturers' websites and look under career opportunities,
just count how many sale makers they need. They're not all using a sewing machine anymore
because of the technology, but I think that what a cool opportunity to be able to, in
all the cities that are overrun with all the sale material, why are we not putting kids
who live on the street or people who have disabilities into an education program so
that they can learn to sew and then they can make the bags. It's literally an ecosystem
waiting for some infrastructure. That's all it is. Every material has a different perfect
use for it. So it seems like a heavy lift, but if there is a desire or the infrastructure
to make sure that we keep stuff out of landfill, then it really isn't that hard to do.
You mentioned something there which we've got to tease apart and that's the different
materials for different things. So I appreciate it and I'm guilty of it too. Resale is a platform,
for example, that sets up very much about connecting sailors in their old sails full stop
with projects that need them. And actually what we're not perhaps articulating clearly
enough is the difference between a canvas sale and a Dakron sale and a spinnaker, all
of which have unique properties and then use for different things, different malleability,
different textures, different weights. How could you see in a perfect world us looking
at sales not as this big bucket, but rather as a collective for such a variety of useful
textiles effectively? I think that we can create at the point
of sale a system where the sales are returned and where we don't burden the manufacturer
in their little loft with waste. So we need waste bins and an organization like ours that
will be responsible for collecting them. And then we need a simple facility, right? We
deconstruct them, take out all the hardware and all the rigging. Some of that rigging
can be used for other things. Over at Seabags, very happy to just make sure they get all
the Dakron sales they need. We can take out so much of the pain point of that by creating
a system underneath our incredible industry to take responsibility for all the waste that
we're putting in it. I've also proposed that we do a subscription
model with, let's say, a J70 class, right? The J70 rips through a Dakron sale if you're
with an active fleet. We all know how many sales you're going through. It is an attitudinal
and behavioral change where if we create systems that will incentivize that the sales come
back to us, then everybody's happy. You get a snappy white sale that you're super proud
of on the start line. We all know how that feels. We get to move these onto their next
use. Nobody's going to stop making them. Nobody's going to stop racing. So let's create a system
so that everybody wins. That's Dakron. And I think that's an easy Dakron thing. Laminates,
it depends on the sale. I mean, 3Di technology has changed the game on that. We got a lot
of laminate sales we got to work through. And different sales are in different parts
of the world. You know what I mean? They're not racing a bunch of J70s in some parts of
the world. I've got one of the largest single mass sales in the world. They're all different.
So it takes a sophisticated system to understand all the materials. And then we got people
walking on the moon. I mean, don't tell me that we can't figure out what to do with waste.
I don't know if you saw it on Instagram the other day, but I watched this truck drive
in front of my house last week and rip up in a five foot long, two inch wide. They just
ripped up the concrete, threw it into a truck that was traveling in front of them and then
came with another one and laid down a new road. And people tell me we can't deconstruct
a sale.
I hear you. You hit the nail on the head with one word and that was incentivized. And I
guess as a combination, the sweet spot is between almost incentivizing and legislating
and providing such an opportunity. And you mentioned something though, which was fascinating
in its skills and whether it's on any political agenda, skills and employment is always top
top priority. So how is this an opportunity to be creating something new? The interesting
thing it doesn't actually have to be within the marine industry. And I think that's what's
so exciting about it is that perhaps broadening our perspective away from, okay, my industry
creates waste. Therefore, I need to find a reuse for it. Fair enough. There's still needs
to be manufacturer responsibility, right? We should be creating things that can be either
broken down without creating more waste, can be reused again, ultimately limiting landfill
and incineration, right? Total goals. But it doesn't necessarily mean that my industry
has to be the one that reuses it. And with your approach, obviously looking at it as
a textile, there are an infinite number of industries that could make the most of it
as a material and as a resource.
I'm using it as a construction material. We're probably at about 60,000 square feet
of shade at the Humane Society on Mali. So we're going to start construction and we're
using local bamboo. So we're using local materials and sales that are retired superyacht
sales that lived in Lahaina. So we're using it at scale and it's going to last for a really,
really, really long time.
You've mentioned, obviously, not it just as a material and a textile, but that you're
using it for construction. And this is fundamentally what's so, I think, special about your approach
to this is that the name of your business effectively is sale to shelter. How did that
come about?
Well, the shelter part was really inspired during the pandemic. When the pandemic hit
and we were all sort of, it was this shelter in place, we were hearing words we had never
heard, we were experiencing fear we had never felt before. And I happened to know that there
were warehouses full of superyacht sales all over the place in LA. And I was thinking,
well, I mean, I'm kind of looking around at my industry, like, are we not all just going
to go help? Like, because we can't. No. But I started calling architects and engineers
and trying to find real solutions. And I found an architect who sailed a TP-52 and he got
it. And that was four years ago. And they've taught me a lot about the construction industry
and how responsible the construction industry has to be. I mean, we have a very unique material
in our hands that does not go through any sort of testing, doesn't have to, doesn't have
any of the same restrictions. And I appreciate that it's been that way for so long. And I
appreciate that we haven't had the same requirements for standards. And I'm not asking people to
change the way they're doing business. But with a little bit more transparency and a
little bit loosening, we can do a whole lot of good with this stuff because the work that
we've done and the people that we've inspired to work with us. And the thing that's so cool
about a sale is that we love sailing, right? We love the whole big picture. But when you
give someone who's never seen it before, who has the mind of an engineer or an architect,
a piece of 3Di material, it's 10 by 10, they go mad. I'm just telling you, I don't know
if you ever do one of my favorite things to do at a dinner party is everybody get up and
change seats. The point is your perspective is different. You are going to have a different
experience when you come to it from a different place. So come to it from a different place
and go, oh my gosh, what could I do? And then you go, well, but they're microplastics and
the this and then that. And you're like, okay, I can solve all that because when I'm going
to get at the end of the day, something I could not ever get anywhere else. Nobody else
is going to go make material with Kevlar in it. I mean, why would we? We don't have to.
Again, it's the way of thinking, isn't it? What you pointed out and actually so many
of the conversations that I've had, the key thing that comes out is the way of thinking.
It's like design outwaste and yours is sort of get up and just change seats, look at it
from a different perspective entirely. And actually we may not be able to. So the marine
industry may not be able to look at it. They're not going to design outwaste. I believe in
the second use economy more than anything else. It happens to be in the marine industry
where I'm standing. So let's not even think about it like that, right? Let's think about
it as we make so much stuff. We human beings all over the world. And it's okay when there's
only a few human beings, go ahead and make your stuff. But then we fell in love with
plastic and then we kept having babies and now we have an incredible population and plastic
all over the place. And I don't know what to say, but it's all gone crazy. All I'm saying
is that yes, design outwaste. But I've taken the circular economy courses. That is hard.
That is a science that's going to take years and years and years. And I love all the conversations
going on about it. Please. In the meantime, we have a mountain of things that we don't
take responsibility for. And ours is the coolest one. But I do feel like we're getting there.
I think by the end of this year, I'm going to have some massively impressive installations
standing up that will tell the story. And the story is a really big, massive, beautiful
story. And then we have this incredible technology where we can tell these stories about sailing.
So is it about sailing? It's really not. It's really about being responsible humans and
helping people who need help. So sail to shelter was about let's go create shelters to help
people social distance during the pandemic. And the more we learn and the more I got told
no, more obstacles that came in the way and more problems we solve, right? That's what
I do. It's I just keep getting the problem out of the way to make way for this opportunity
for us to really do something special. And it isn't going to happen for the pandemic,
but there's a crisis every day. And I get called every single day for help. World Central
Kitchen calls me every time they go someplace new. Do you have any sales there? Is there
anything we can do there? So the way it works is that I can use an infrastructure that's
in place with a global inventory of material. And we're in World Central Kitchen calls me
and says, I need something in Spain. I have partners and relationships and material that
I can get there usually sooner, cheaper, and it doesn't go waste. And people whose lives
have just been completely upended, we get to help them. So that's how to shelter.
It's incredible. I mean, I understand what you're about and also what you're achieving
is incredible. And I appreciate that. I'm sure you feel it at times the frustration
of the pace in which we're collectively thinking about this. But just on Maui in particular,
because I appreciate you know, sales can be a grand construction material. And you said
sort of the partitioning and otherwise the sort of COVID distancing. But with Maui,
it's really important that we talk about this because this was the deadliest US wildfire
in over a century, which devastated this little Hawaiian island in 2023. Now, killed, I think
102 people, and there are 27,000 people who needed aid, for example. I mean, this was
a huge scale disaster on an island, which arguably any place shouldn't be able to have
to deal with that or have the capacity to deal with it. But we're talking the island
states normally really don't have the capacity to deal with it, particularly in Polynesia
and say the Caribbean. So what have you so far managed to achieve with sale to shelter
in Maui specifically? Because I think this is a really important part of your story.
Maui is a complicated, very sad, and also very brilliant experience and place and pain.
And it's probably not a great example. It's a great example of the chaos of humanitarian
aid of people in pain, communities that lose everything. The Maui part that is exciting
is that we have established relationships with local bamboo farmers. And we're using
sale material and bamboo to create structures that will last for decades. When you go into
help in a disaster area with what we do, I'm not trying to provide housing. I'm trying
to provide wraparound services and big spaces. We can go and stand up big. We can also create
refugee camps. Like, we know where natural disasters are going. We know where we can
move people. I can go build a refugee camp. I've got 109 super yacht sales in Spain.
They're ready to go. So there is this really beautiful thing that we can go clean out all
these warehouses with this sale material and help people who have been involuntarily displaced.
And that number around the world is exponentially growing because of climate, because of the
wars that were under. I mean, I've sent material into Ukraine. We have rigging that goes into
Ukraine on a regular basis out of Spain. There's a way for us inside this industry to use the
things that give us so much joy for help. I'm fully committed to figuring that out and working
with everyone around the world that can help. I mean, you and I, we're doing the same thing.
This is why when I found you, I was like, okay, this is it. There is a global group of us
who sees we have these incredible tools. And I also come from marketing, right? I come
from insights in human behavior. And so it's like, what is the human behavior around this,
right? And how do we just establish trust with that super yacht community so that it
just is endemic to sailing, that your sale becomes something else. Holly, that's our
goal. And everybody understands that it's this now, and it's something else next. And
it's your responsibility to get it someplace so that it gets to its next thing. I'll tell
you another thing I've proposed to incentivize the behavior, a digital cut card, everybody
makes things differently and they have different QR systems and SKUs and the whole thing. I
needed to know how big it is. I need to know what material it's made of, what year it's
made, the manufacturer helps me. I don't need to know all your secret adhesives and all
your secret things that make it go faster. Because I already know, because I've already
done two years of research in a textile engineering lab, I already know what I can't use it for
and I already know it's contaminated beyond use. But it will help me to know the size
and the material because that way, I mean, now I'm opening these things out and doing
all, I mean, obviously you could open it up and it could have a sale or it could have
condition is variable, but it would help to know what it is before I even have to unpack
it. And I've asked them, can we do it like a microchip for an animal, right? I just want
to insert it into the sale so that I can read it. You can read it. Anybody around the world
can read it with a chip reader. And then we can know what to do with it. And it can be
like, oh, it's Dacron, it goes to that collection place or it's that you see.
I think what's really fantastic is sort of that, I'm going to say seismic because it
is considering where society appears to be currently, all of us involved in that that
seismic shift around what we're using now is going to become something else. And that
the in that has an innate responsibility for pretty much looking after something as
long as we can kind of goes against that. Not always. Well, not always. It may not be
able to. But if we knew that something was going to have another life, whether it's a
mobile phone or whether it's the glass that I've got in my hand, we do operate very differently.
If you think it's going to be trash, it's going to go into a landfill, I'll just buy
a new one. I think it is a slightly different mentality to know, oh, hey, when I'm done
with this phone, or when I fancy an upgrade, or whatever happens to it, it's going to be
something else. So I will approach it with a slightly different way. So I would like
to think we would. But also the element of waste doesn't go anywhere. Once something
is created, it doesn't disappear.
This is the part we just ever talked about. We just didn't ever talk about it because
it was ever a problem. But then that pile just kept growing and growing and growing
and growing. And you're right. And I love the idea that like, because what if you have
a J70 and you don't ever race, if you're not in an active fleet, you don't want to be
part of a subscription model. If you are, you want to pay $10,000 a year and get all
the sales you want. And what that helps us do, Holly, is it helps us start to plan our
inventory. Because I'll know that for an active fleet out of Newport, Rhode Island, how many
sales I'll get a year. And I'll know out of a J70 class out of Italy, how many sales
I'll get out of here. And then C-bags will know how many bags they can make and sell
or whoever it is.
The thing I'm just, just that it's so refreshing is just the transparency of conversation around
this. It's not a, oh, hey, how many sales do you happen to go through season with this
sort of query response side eyes? Don't really want to say because they're obviously going
to land sale currently. It's like, hey, we know that we're racing. So we're pushing
these things that are fantastically designed to the absolute limit. They're going to blow.
And the racing circuits, obviously the most fantastic opportunity and sport and spectatorship.
But there is waste. There's no point in us denying it. So it's rather like, hey, let's
be transparent from the off as you're suggesting, knowing how many you're aiming to use a year.
Then you know how many you've got tend to use as a resource for the second life, lining
up the sort of tertiary layer in the, in the whole puzzle, which is those individuals,
organizations, projects, businesses that can then rely on that resource being quite sustainable
incoming. Because I think one of the biggest things that I found with resale, for example,
is the ad hoc nature with which sales are donated. So obviously dealing with the every, every
sailor, the layperson that say, I could go through a sale once in 10 years, someone else
might go through a spinnaker every season. And actually the reliability of that resource
for any industry looking to rely on it is tricky. So what you're doing is focus on those
knowns that we know within those classes, those areas of the industries that have a very reliable
consistent use of sales, which can then become quite a useful and substantial resource with
which to make other products. You said something which I wrote down because I wanted to challenge
you on it. And you'd said, I'm not asking them to change their business. And my question
is why not? How can we achieve this without changing business? Because what happens is
you've described various industries that have done this quite successfully, construction,
major one, the regulation, the legislation around it is really tight. Obviously a huge
industry, billions and billions globally, our homes, our workplaces, the infrastructure
upon which we rely day to day, appreciate sailing as a bit more niche, the marine industry
is a bit more niche. But they had to change the way they did business. I think in order
to do things differently, often we do need to change the way we do business may not be
an overhaul, but all we not be saying, hey, but this is the reality in order to get there,
we do have to change some things. It could be as simple as putting a chip in or like
you said, being able to at least all the sale loss or producers of sales, taking back even
if not to use end of life sales, there has to be change. No, no, there does. What I can't
be is the person who keeps my knee on everybody's throat. But I mean, yeah, there has to be
change. I am willing to create a reclaim system. I'm willing to work to create a global reclaim
system. But I also know because I've been working in the Supriot industry now for long
enough that these are relationships that take place years in advance. I need to be at a
dock. They all know when it's coming. So a collection and retrieval and figure out some
of the major hub cities and maybe we do some consolidation of some of those things. Yeah,
I do think that they need to do a card for me and I'm going to put pressure on that.
Because it's too much work and it doesn't need to be that much work. Why can't we make this
one thing easier? I'm not asking for your secrets. I'm not asking for your formulas.
I'm not trying to reverse engineer. But yeah, they should do that to make that easier. And
I'm in conversations with one of the manufacturers to do that. And I have a great relationship
with a few of the lofts in Southern California who work with me on collections. We do some
of those things. It's taken me a long time and I appreciate the time it's taken me because
it's just I've had to establish trust and I hope I have.
It's something that you're achieving incredible things. I know that you are and I very much
appreciate the journey that you've been on because I think when you're pioneering something
and encouraging others who are long established in their ways to do the same, it's no small
feat. It's colossal. It is the surface pushing his rock up a hill. But it's also I think
an incredibly important time because you can feel the change starting to happen. You can
see the change starting to happen. And honestly, if something has never been an issue before,
why would the industry have thought about it any differently? So I think it does take
to your very first point on this area of the topic is get up and change seats. So it's
taking people from outside of the industry to look at it very differently and say, Hey,
Cracky, that's really cool. I could effectively have a completely free natural resource in
the Verticommas to create my product, business, whatever. I mean, what industry can do that?
What producer can get all of the raw materials for free, which ultimately is something that
at the moment exists because no one knows what to do with end of life sales.
Okay, well, that's a whole another hour long conversation about the free part. So my thinking
on this is that I don't want it to be thought of as waste and I don't want it to be thought
of as free because it is not free. I chose to become a nonprofit in this country to incentivize
a tax donation for US Yacht owners to donate their sales. And it works okay. I have also
found that there are enough for a good program. They'll do a sale drive for me or something
or they'll do a collection for me. That's a nomenclature thing for me that I get funny
about calling them waste or about calling them free. So inside baseball for us here
and you and I've talked about this before, I want there to be a round table and I've
said this to the manufacturers. I've said this to the folks at the mentioned polyan. I'm
like, let's put everybody in a room. Let's put those of us who want to see change happen
in a room and let's start to work together. And if it means that we have a very broad
goal or a very niche goal and it takes a very long time, I don't care, but we need to be
standing together. I sent you not long ago, the World Sailing Association, their very first
sustainability report. I couldn't wait to read it. I couldn't wait to see what the plan
was for sales. There isn't one. There isn't even a conversation about sales. So we need
to be at the table. So let's go make the change happen. I just put us at the table and just
like give us responsibility for the second use or third or fourth, whatever it is, but
give it to us.
I'm really in tears because I was almost slightly taken aback by your response there,
talking between friends about the whole waste of the free thing because obviously as it
exists today with initial approach to this issue, opportunity is the creation of furnishing
bags now fashion garments a lot. And it's a sale is wanting to feel better and having
the opportunity to do something better than taking the old sale to the dump. So it's a
moral and ethical win in some ways for the individual to donate to sale. And for organisations
who can then make the most of it, it is a free resource. Currently it's something that
they do not have to pay for. If you're in any other industry, like making this again
glass that I'm holding, you've got to pay for it. You've got to buy your own materials
to create something. But I appreciate that that too goes in the whole almost like the
paradigm shift in the mentality change, which you're guessing at and that's the something
will always need to become something else. Even if we don't want it to be a dust, it
becomes waste when we stick it in a landfill. It's something that is no longer deemed to
be useful to an individual society. So it stays in this hole on the ground, right? But
obviously what you're trying to do is change it from waste to, again, just a material.
So it stays, it's going to be useful for something else.
Transformation. It is the knowing creature. It is how we think of it. It is just how we
think of it. So there are advantages to calling it free and there are disadvantages to calling
it free. And I don't think that's fair. And the things that we build and construct anybody
would want to, I mean, we build and construct beautiful things that make people feel good.
We construct things that make people, I don't want you to be in a safe and it's a wonderful
experience because standing under a super yacht sail, even when it's not dragging a ship across
the ocean, it's pretty cool. They're very cool things.
So I think it's perfect because like anything, I think we've become so detached from the
value of so much that even as you said, there's a lot of technology that goes into it, but
still it's there is anyone sail as an example as a result of millions of hours, thousands
of years of history, many different hands, brains, teams, countries, cultures, refining
something or various somethings in terms of different materials into globally, yeah,
into an ultimate product which is deemed to be useful and that we buy so much of and
then ultimately is currently left without some formal utility once it's deemed to be
not useful on a boat. You're right, nothing is free. It may come to you without you having
to transactionally purchase it in the bluntest way.
It's valuable. I call it and I call it for the second use
economy success metrics that we need a different set of success metrics for what we're doing
because if my material is free, my cost of deconstruction goes into my cost of manufacturing,
which is an extra step, which becomes your cost of goods, that transportation and that
cost of deconstruction, trust me, I can tell you that some sales require heavy equipment
to move. I have moved sales that have never been on a crane and on a boat and now they're
sitting on a yacht. We have deconstructed massive, massive things.
Like you said, all the hardware within them as well. That in itself is what you're saying,
actually taking them apart, stripping out the bits and pieces, finding another use for
even those if you can do recycling them. Yeah, it's an expensive time and energy as well
as cost. I very much appreciate that. I stand somewhat corrected.
Well, it's because there's a cost to taking it to the landfill and that's been the system.
The system is they come off the boat, they go onto a trailer and go straight to landfill
and now I stand in the middle of that and I want us to think about it. I want us to
change the way we think about them as it's a sale now. It's like somebody said this should
be called second wind. We should have a second wind brand because, but let's go have these
conversations. I just want to go be having this conversation with as many people who
will have it. Tell me why we can't do it and I'm happy to have the conversation about why
it can't happen. I want to capture what you've just said,
which is it's a sale now. It's almost like a roll of fabric next with limitless possibilities.
That's it. Ail is not the finite. Like you said, it's the way you approach it is the
textile. Very powerful. What's your main ask of the marine industry going forward?
Somebody have the leadership and the courage to come run a program with me. Somebody step
into this. I won't be the hero they will be. We will make someone look like a star. If
they will come and say, we're going to be the first ones to commit to this. Somebody's
doing it for billboards. So they take down billboards and they turn them into bags. If
you've seen this company, but I've talked to the CEO and you know what he said to me?
Broke my heart. He said he lives here in Santa Barbara. So we were connected and he said,
if I could do this all over again, I wouldn't. He said it's been really, really hard. The
system isn't made for us to reuse. The system is made for take, make, throw away. So everything
that we're trying to put in place is so hard because the system is not there for us to
go collect the stuff that we've made and then reproduce it. It has to be, we have to put
money and we have to put attention into this step. We cannot go straight from linear to
circular without paying attention to the ship we made. That's all I'm here to focus on.
And I'm only talking about sales. Somebody else can talk about all the other stuff and
rigging it. Rigging is in the sale, but it's a lot, but it's so valuable. I mean, we're
talking about shredding it and making surfboards and we're making fences and wind fences and
every other creative, awesome human who puts their hands on it goes, what's all the black
stuff inside? And you're like, oh, that's carbon fiber. So then it's just a whole new
the world opens up and people go crazy. I don't want the sales to ever be in jeopardy.
I don't know if the industry feels like we have this big bed secret that we have this
incredible material that's so valuable and we don't want anybody to know. But I don't
know that they're thinking like that. I just think that if you don't get on a boat, you've
never seen it. And most people have never been on a boat. And of the people that have
ever been on a boat, very few have been on a boat that's ever seen that material. Do
you see what I'm saying? It's like, I haven't seen it. So it doesn't have to be thrown away
though I'm saying. So I want somebody that has the courage or the interest or get in
this with me and somebody started a program. You know who I want? I'm with the 52 Super
Series. I mean, I want somebody with a voice. I want North to do the J70 subscription with
one team. Let's test it with one. Let's pilot it. Let's see if it works. Let's see if we
can make the money. Somebody might make more money. It's like the documentary storytelling
when you open up a garage and look in it and all you see is 20 by 20 foot storage unit
just piled to the ceiling and we have homeless people. It just doesn't make any sense.
I think also on the point of value, and you're talking about super yacht sales in particular,
we're talking a hundred grand worth of main sole at a time. I mean, these things cost
virgin sales and an ordinary amount of money, not least because of the size and the technology
that goes into them. So it is almost a real pity and a real shame if we aren't able to
reasonably globally provide another opportunity for us to use this stuff. Because like we
said, just because it's thrown away doesn't mean it's waste. And it also maintains enough
integrity to be valuable to lots of different industries and lots of different constructions
and lots of different things. So it really is, sounds like really is about just connecting
the dots. I say just rationally, it appears simple. I appreciate the reality is somewhat
more treacherous, but not impossible.
No, because I feel like also we don't have to be everything to everyone. I can have a
very niche customer, I can have World Central Kitchen or any other rescue, and we only have
what we have. I don't need to provide tense to everybody. What I need to do is use up
what they have. You see, it's reverse engineering. I now have the material and when it's gone,
I can't sell anymore. But until it's gone, I have a problem. The chicken can only lay
so many eggs, right? Like this is what I have. Because I can't tell you that I can give you
a hundred more super yacht sales every single year, we're going to let these all just get
thrown away. Stop. This is a fantastic opportunity. As always, I'm feeling very inspired. Somewhat
sad is not the right word, but somewhat newly the sadness to me. It's been said from the
problem.
The problem is a problem. Together. I want to know and just to close is where would you
like to be in say five years? I know it's a very arbitrary timeline, but just give me
a clue. Where do you want to see the industry sell to shelter in a few years time? I want
sale to shelter to become in five years to be endemic to sailing that nobody has to
store another sale in their garage, that we have enough of the system in place and it
might be Holly that it's a service and maybe it becomes a tax on the sale that your loft
is going to be a sale to shelter loft. You're going to pay a tax on your not much, just enough
for a 20 foot container in the front of somebody's whatever. They fill it up when it's full, we
come and get it. There'll be one in California. Let's say there's San Diego LA, maybe not
in San Francisco. I don't get enough sale, but you know what I mean? Like there's a,
there's hub, new port, and then we do the consolidation thing. And wherever it is in
the world where these majors, cities are in five years, they just all end up in these
transformation centers, which I think can also be fantastically creative places. At the end
of the day, it's going to be the Christopher Rayburn. You know, he has those amazing like
the lab. That's all I want.
Just a closing sort of thought is that obviously in Europe, there's quite a lot of work being
done legally and also selling up sort of frameworks around end of life materials, notably around
say end of life boats, the actual GRP and FRP. And France in particular have relatively
recently launched new legislation, which ultimately puts the tax on the person who buys a boat
first, so new boats. And that tax goes towards recovery of the boat and dealing with the
boat at end of life. And we've seen obviously a lot of different legislatures playing around
with the concept of if you produce a product, you ought to be responsible for what happens
to end of life. And as you know, no, Coca Cola isn't yet set up to itself recycle or recollect
all of its glass and all of its cams to then sort them, process them and turn them into
another product. But it's still a gray area. It's still an area which has been worked on
from a legal perspective because is it the producer's responsibility to look after something
at end of life? Is it the person who buys it, the taxpayer effectively on what happens to
end of life? It's muddy, but it's fascinating. I mean, it's really fascinating. Everything
not for grabs.
But why don't we now insert the third option because we can be the place, right? Then everybody
has an option right now, there is no option. So it's a really painful point. Either way,
it gets thrown away. You see, either one of those burdens goes to a party to throw it
away. We insert an option for something different.
That's really well put. And that in itself is the transformation of the industry and
the transformation of the paradigm and the way of thinking that you've described Sir
Attlee through this conversation. Angela, it's a real pleasure to talk with you as always.
I know this will be the first of several, but if you had one request to anyone listening
to this podcast, Marine Industry or otherwise, what would it be?
Just leadership. I just would like leadership and courage to try some really fun, interesting
things. We have to do it. It has to be done. And there has to be someone in this industry.
And I know it's summer and everybody's really busy and sailing and having great time at
the same time. But when it's over, call me and let's see what we can do to move the
needle. And look, at the end of the day, Holly, I don't want there to need to be a sales,
right? Maybe sales get so much stronger and they are getting so much stronger all the
time and repairing them is getting something, right? We won't have to do this forever. But
for as long as we do, let's be responsible and let's go be innovative. Let's go be creative.
And here's what I know. If your passion is to make sales, go do it. The reason it's not
getting done, Holly, is because nobody wants to do that work. Well, I do. Nobody wants
to go deconstruct a sale and turn it into something else because it's hard. I'll let
the people who want to do it do it. Very well put, Angela. Angela Abashaya, founder of
Sail to Shelter and hailing from California with some wonderful work already being done.
I'm so excited to see what you come up with next. And we'll absolutely stay in touch and
help each other on this journey. I can't wait. You're a big part of it. Thank you. I love
your work too. You've been listening to the Clean Sailors podcast. All relevant links
to the projects and people we talk to can be found with the podcast link for all episodes
or to get in touch. Just visit CleanSailors.com. We love to hear from you. We believe that
great ideas should be shared, which is why our podcast is free to appear on. So if you've
got a project, idea or topic you think we should be discussing, get in touch. In the
meantime, thank you for listening and see you for the next episode.