I was in Auckland NZ and docked in the harbor was the Earthrace Boat. These guys (earthrace.com) are trying to break the world time record circumnavigating the world in 65 days. On Biodiesel!

They plan to start in March 2007 and will tour US ports during 2006.

Trully a wild looking boat. It thought it was some kind of ride at first.

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Wild looking thing, wonder how sea worthy it is? Isn't the currant record holder a sailboat? Probably a cat?

Wonder what kind of engine they are using? Any tech info?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I particularly like the 'high-tech' gangplank.

Interesting vessel, more about it here along with video of the prototype doing some wave piercing.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Quite the handrail (safety first) on that plank.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Anyone know anything about the Cummins Mercruiser QSC-540? I know the small ones that they are starting to use with stern drives now are junk. Is this a real Cummins engine or something else?

Cool boat, I'm kind of surprised they didn't try and carry more fuel. 3kNM range is still impressive though. Thats just a bit more then 1nm per gallon, sounds about right.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

You are right about the gangplank. Quite un high tech

Haven't looked at the website yet. If the specs are not listed I took a pix of the info board.

Twin 540 HP Cummins Merc's and a wavepiercing hull. Not sure if the latter is feasible. As an aside, during the NZ journey we crossed Cook strait in a Ferry and encountered 30 ft swells. The ferry had 27 railroad cars in its belly and I 'm glad we had that iron on board.Big @#$ Ferry to boot.

Interesting coincidence that you post this today; on April 10, 1968 TEV Wahine capsized in the approaches to Wellington afer encountering 90+mph winds while crossing the Cook Straits. Approximately 50 perished.


I've made that passage too; fortunately, the weather was a bit more placid for us.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Mr. Leo

Wow,

I'm glad I didn't know that before we made the journey. Ignorance is bliss. Anyway as you probably know the Interislander ferry is much sturdier and better designed for the heavy weather. It looks like a giant fishing boat with the large high bow.

Liked your pix of Picton. Have the same one. Thinking of retiring to South Island someday. It was really depressing to come back to traffic and stress.