The Top consortium Knowledge & Innovation, TKI, is teaming up with The Ocean Race 2022-23 to reduce carbon emissions by the maritime industry. The consortium is a Dutch initiative that brings together the business world, government and knowledge institutes. During the race, high-performance sport and research will team up to collect and analyse relevant data with the aim of improving our understanding of ocean currents in places that are not easily accessible for research. This knowledge can be used to optimise offshore navigation, reducing costs and carbon emissions in the maritime industry. The preliminary results will be presented during The Ocean Race’s stopover in The Hague in June 2023.

*Impression of the VO65 with Sailing Team NEXTGEN*

The Ocean Race 2022-23 is a yacht race around the world. The teams will visit nine iconic cities in a six-month period. The race sets off from Alicante (Spain) on 15 January 2023 and returns to Europe in June 2023, with a stopover in The Hague expected from 11 until 15 June 2023. The Grand Final will be in Genoa (Italy) in late June 2023.

During The Ocean Race 2022-23, a scientific programme will be carried out on board the VO65 yacht of “Sailing Team NEXTGEN”, including measurements in remote areas that will help to fill the gaps in global measurement data. These measurements will include ocean currents, water temperature, microplastics and salinity.

*Optimize offshore navigation through high-performance sports and research*

This project is important to acquire a clearer understanding of the climate (global and local) by improving the flow models at Deltares. The results will allow the optimisation of shipping routes (and therefore the reduction of carbon emissions) and improve our understanding of the processes relevant to water-quality modelling and marine productivity in our seas and oceans.

The results of the improved and validated models will be incorporated in products for governments, the maritime sector, the offshore wind industry, scientific communities, etc.

In addition to improving the predictions of currents and refining shipping routes, the results will be used in public engagement programmes to raise awareness of the importance of our oceans for climate change (and vice-versa). One such programme will be The Ocean Summit in June 2023 during the last Ocean Race stopover in The Hague.

The participants in the TKI consortium are: Allseas, Province Zuid-Holland, DutchSail B.V., Poortman Sailing Services and Deltares.

The other partners in the DutchSail Knowledge & Innovation programme are: the City of The Hague, Janssen de Jong, van der Zwan, Sailing Holland, Sailing Innovation Centre, SeaDis, Erasmus MC, MARIN, NLR, TNO and WUR-Marien, Royal Netherlands Watersport Association and the Dutch yacht clubs RNYC (KNZ&RV) and RMYC (KRZV De Maas).

Dutch team in The Ocean Race 2022-23 will work with research world to cut carbon emissions