For those who don’t usually circumnavigate the globe on a sailboat, it can be absolutely terrifying to think about traversing gusting winds, enormous seas and unrelenting swells of the world’s oceans for months on end.

The thought alone would leave anyone grateful for a life on solid ground and to never again think of the vastness of the open ocean. Or, worse still, what may lie beneath it.

The Ocean Race returned to Cape Town this year in what is expected to be the most sustainable edition of the event, say race organisers.(Photo: Jamie Venter)

But for sailors and on-shore staff of The Ocean Race, life on the high seas has left them feeling more connected to the ocean – and more concerned for the impact of human-driven activities on ocean health.

The Ocean Race is known as sailing’s greatest round-the-world team challenge.

The race spans more than six months, with nine stopover cities across the globe. It features some of the sport’s highest-performing athletes, gunning to bring their team across the finish line first.

But the sheer magnitude of a sailing race reliant on hundreds of support staff, and drawing in millions of visitors to stopover points, also comes with a substantial carbon footprint.

The Ocean Race is a 50-year-old event, but it is at the forefront of advocating a sustainable future for the ocean. (Photo: Jamie Venter)

So it may come as a surprise that the 50-year-old event is at the forefront of sustainable sport, with organisers of the 2023 race estimating a 75% reduction in carbon emissions generated by this year’s event, compared with the previous edition.

F1 of ocean racing

“This is the Formula 1 of racing, you are pitting extremely high-performing athletes and Olympians against one another, but it is more than a sailing race; we are racing for purpose and sustainability,” said Bruce Parker Forsyth, CEO of Live Company Sports and Entertainment, at the opening of The Ocean Race Cape Town stopover on 8 February.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis was with Forsyth at the stopovers’ Ocean Live Park, where visitors can experience the race and its commitment to sustainability first-hand.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis celebrated the return of The Ocean Race to South African shores after a five-year hiatus. (Photo: Jamie Venter)

It is Cape Town’s 12th hosting of the event and Hill-Lewis emphasised his admiration for the event’s efforts towards sustainability.

“I love the focus that the race places on ‘racing with purpose’,” said Hill-Lewis. “It reminds us to pay some special attention to the responsibility that we all bear in Cape Town for cleaning up our oceans.”

The Ocean Live Park uses renewable energy wherever possible, and single-use plastics are not allowed. “All materials across the site are carefully selected, for example our event flags are made from recycled plastic and, along with the onsite banners, will be recycled by the manufacturer at the end of the race,” states the Ocean Race Website.

The park also features immersive educational experiences and events that aim to promote understanding of the importance of a healthy ocean.

One immersive activity includes the One Blue Voice Immersive Experience, which has been created in collaboration with 11th Hour Racing. The experience takes visitors on a journey beneath the waves of the world’s ocean to discover the bigger race – the one to protect the ocean.

Fighting for ocean solutions

The Ocean Race goes further than offsetting its own footprint. Instead, all hands are on deck to address ocean health, ocean solutions and ocean policy.

The Ocean Race and 11th Hour Racing, the Founding Partner of the race’s sustainability programme, admire a sea star while exploring the kelp forests off Simon’s Town with Cape RADD while promoting citizen science. (Photo: Jamie Venter)

Sustainability engagement programmes organised by The Ocean Race and 11th Hour Racing, the founding partner of the race’s sustainability programme, are taking place in most host cities that the race is stopping at across the world.

In Cape Town, this involved teaming up with Cape RADD in Simon’s Town to engage staff and stakeholders around citizen science.

On 21 February, The Ocean Race staff slipped into their wetsuits, pulled on fins and snorkelled for science with a marine biologist from Cape RADD, to find and document small kelp-forest-dwelling sharks, to get a better grasp on their population.

“This was one of our immersive experiences, coming down to Cape RADD and checking out False Bay’s kelp forests,” said Lucy Hunt, senior adviser for The Ocean Race Summits & Learning programmes.

“South Africa’s kelp forest is amazing,” she added.

“The Ocean Race is an amazing platform to raise awareness for how important the ocean is,” said Hunt.

“We’ve created a number of education programmes all around ocean literacy, we have them in eight languages. They are used in 66 countries around the world and we have worked with more than 180,000 students,” said Hunt.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

Currently, Hunt is focused on examining ocean rights. “Not peoples’ rights to the ocean, but the ocean’s own rights,” explained Hunt.

“Really, it is an idea that has been here for centuries, if you look at indigenous values and that relationship with nature – it is something that has always been here, but we have lost it.”

People have lost that reverence for nature in many ways because they are so disconnected from it, explained Hunt.

“We need to understand that we are inherently connected to the ocean and we can’t disregard that,” said Hunt. “It gives us life, and without the ocean, we wouldn’t be here.”

The good news – people are listening.

“There is definite support for it, and when we speak to young people, they are like ‘yeah, obviously’. The ocean needs a lawyer, its own lawyer, to represent its interests,” said Hunt.

“It should be recognised as an entity in itself.”

The Ocean Race will host a summit coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly to present draft principles for ocean rights in September this year. The ultimate goal is the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights by 2030.

“It is a process, but having the conversation is helping to start the change that needs to happen,” said Hunt. DM/OBP

The Ocean Race has launched a campaign called One Blue Voice to gather support for ocean rights. Add your voice here: onebluevoice.net

The Ocean Race teams departed from Cape Town on 26 February on the third leg of their journey which will see them bring their message next to Itajaí, Brazil, a 12,750 nautical mile adventure. Swiss Team Holcim – PRB lead at the beginning of the longest and toughest leg of this race.

Leaderboard: 

1. Team Holcim – PRB: 10 points
2. 11th Hour Racing Team: 7 points
3. Biotherm: 6 points