Raft made from 15,000 plastic bottles completes epic crossing

In June, we reported that two Americans were hoping to sail a raft made of plastic rubbish across the Pacific. Now their bunch of plastic bottles, strapped together with old aluminum spars and topped with an aeroplane cockpit and a mast, has arrived in Hawaii.

Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal took this 87 day, 2,600 mile cruise in order to bring awareness to the issue of ocean pollution. Today, the team made their landfall at the Ala Wai Harbor Fuel Dock on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

With a top speed of 3.2 knots, it wasn’t a fast ride, and they were some serious problems, but a steady pace over the last few weeks has brought vessel and crew in to port safely. Thanks to modern communications equipment, photos and video from sea have been posted online to bring special attention to the Pacific Ocean pollution and the North Pacific Gyre – a clockwise rotating mass of water roughly twice the size of the US, described by the team as ‘a toilet bowl that never flushes’.

They met up mid-Pacific with Roz Savage, who we featured in our telltale blog , and who is attempting to row across the same stretch of water.

For more information see the team’s website