SUEZ CANAL - 16th Waypoint

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The Suez Canal (Arabic: قناة السويس qanāt as-suwēs) is a sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. Constructed by the Suez Canal Company between 1859 and 1869, it was officially opened on 17 November 1869. The canal offers watercraft a shorter journey between the North Atlantic and northern Indian Ocean via the Mediterranean and Red Seas by avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian Oceans, reducing the journey by approximately 6,000 kilometres 

When first opened in 1869, the canal consisted of a channel barely 26 feet (8 metres) deep, 72 feet (22 metres) wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet (61 to 91 metres) wide at the surface. To allow ships to pass each other, passing bays were built every 5 to 6 miles (8 to 10 km). Construction involved the excavation and dredging of 97 million cubic yards (74 million cubic metres) of sediments. Between 1870 and 1884 some 3,000 groundings of ships occurred because of the narrowness and tortuousness of the channel. Major improvements began in 1876, and, after successive widenings and deepenings, the canal by the 1960s had a minimum width of 179 feet (55 metres) at a depth of 33 feet (10 metres) along its banks and a channel depth of 40 feet (12 metres) at low tide.

In 2008, 21,415 vessels passed through the canal and the receipts totaled $5.381 billion, with an average cost per ship of $251,000.

Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Arabic: سلمان بن عبد العزیز آل سعود‎) has been King of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques since 23 January 2015 [right].

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, is the second most important position in Saudi Arabia, second to the King, and is his designated successor [left].

Jeddah (sometimes spelled Jiddah or Jedda) is a city in the Tihamah region of the Hejaz on 

the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest seaport on the Red Sea, and with a population of about four million people (as of 2017), the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. Jeddah is Saudi Arabia's commercial capital.

Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca and Medina, two of the holiest cities in Islam and popular tourist attractions.

Economically, Jeddah is focusing on further developing capital investment in scientific and engineering leadership within Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East. Jeddah was independently ranked fourth in the Africa – Mid-East region in terms of innovation in 2009 in the Innovation Cities Index.

Jeddah is one of Saudi Arabia's primary resort cities and was named a Beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC). Given the city's close proximity to the Red Sea, fishing and seafood dominates the food culture unlike other parts of the country. In Arabic, the city's motto is "Jeddah Ghair," which translates to "Jeddah is different." The motto has been widely used among both locals as well as foreign visitors. The city had been previously perceived as the "most open" city in Saudi Arabia.

Jeddah has long been a port city. Even before being designated the port city for Mecca, Jeddah was a trading hub for the region. In the 19th century, goods such as mother-of-pearl, tortoise shells, frankincense, and spices were routinely exported from the city.

The territory that now constitutes Saudi Arabia was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations. The prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world. The world's second-largest religion, Islam, emerged in modern-day Saudi Arabia.

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi is an Egyptian politician who is the sixth and current President of Egypt, in office since 2014. 

Mostafa Kemal Madbouly is the current Prime Minister of Egypt. He was appointed by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to succeed Sherif Ismail following his government's resignation in the wake of Sisi's re-election. Madbouly also serves in the Egyptian Government as Minister of Housing and Urban Utilities, and has also briefly served as interim Prime Minister

Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia, and across the Mediterranean lie Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, although none share a land border with Egypt.

Apart from the Nile Valley, the majority of Egypt's landscape is desert, with a few oases scattered about. Winds create prolific sand dunes that peak at more than 100 feet (30 m) high.

Due to the extreme aridity of Egypt's climate, population centres are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, meaning that about 99% of the population uses about 5.5% of the total land area.

Egypt's economy depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum imports, natural gas, and tourism.

Egypt has a developed energy market based on coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro power. Substantial coal deposits in the northeast Sinai are mined at the rate of about 600,000 tonnes (590,000 long tons; 660,000 short tons) per year. Oil and gas are produced in the western desert regions, the Gulf of Suez, and the Nile Delta. Egypt has huge reserves of gas, estimated at 2,180 cubic kilometres (520 cu mi) and LNG.

Tourism is one of the most important sectors in Egypt's economy. More than 12.8 million tourists visited Egypt in 2008, providing revenues of nearly $11 billion.

Our Trustees believe that it might be useful to anyone interested in progressing low carbon transport, for us to plan a route for the Elizabeth Swan, such that if it is deemed a worthy cause in the battle to tackle climate change, that we have a plan in place to demonstrate clean ocean transport is not as far away as one might imagine, should the political will crystallize to accelerate sustainable technology after COP 24 in December 2018.

If the Foundation were to support the initiation of such a challenge, it would be in a dual format, also being designed as an ocean awareness event to attract a global audience to gain the highest potential media coverage.

16TH LEG - The sixteenth leg of this zero carbon voyage is approximately 670 nautical miles from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Port Said. At a cruising speed of 7 knots average cruising speed this leg of the awareness campaign campaign would take 4 days to complete. At 6 knots the journey would take 5 days.

We must add the cumulative total of the transit time in days for each leg to the media and PR sleepover in port to find the average circumnavigation speed. It will be interesting to see how closely any actual voyage matches the route planning estimations.

Hence this is a theoretical exercise to determine what might be possible in the world of cargo and passenger transport if future ships were to use a power formula derived from the Elizabeth Swan and SeaVax platforms, to increase voyage speed for zero carbon shipping such as to be commercially viable and non polluting.

The following then is a contingency plan to be ready should the Foundation or any Government, Organization, ocean literacy associate or collaborative research partner decide (jointly) that we are in a suitably robust position to mount such a challenge to be worthwhile in awareness terms, including advancing climate control knowledge.

The above does not preclude the possibility of  responsible commercial associates enjoining - being a most welcome prospect, perhaps when the Foundation is further along the R&D line and any proposed circumnavigation presents less of a technical risk share to potential contributors and end users, such as ship builders and fleet operators. Such partnerships might accelerate project development considerably.

OCEAN AWARENESS - PROVISIONING & MEDIA STOPS

We are making allowance for nineteen (19) provisioning and Public Relations stops of three days duration each. This adds an extra 57 days to the expedition in the interests of furthering awareness objectives. Hence, the passage would not be an outright race, unless any consortium providing financial incentives decided not to stop for photo opportunities by way of a condition in accepting support. If a race was decided on, provisions for a 3-4 person crew would need to be stored on board. Being solar and wind powered there is no need for conventional refueling.

RECORD HOLDER - On the 4th of May 2012, history was made, as Raphael Domjan, at the helm of a giant of a catamaran powered only by solar panels crossed the finishing line at Monaco to become the first electric boat to sail around the world. MS Tûranor PlanetSolar, known under the project name PlanetSolar, was (@ 2018) the largest solar-powered boat in the world. The vessel was launched on the 31st March 2010, also going into the Guinness Book of World Records with a time of 584 days to better by any contender. The project was mostly financed by Immo Stroeher, the owner of the boat. Though a magnificent endeavour, PlanetSolar was not designed at the outset to take full advantage of energy from nature, but was rather a very much modified ferry design.

FOSSIL FUELS - The Cable and Wireless Adventurer was built for the purpose of circumnavigating the world in less than 80 days. This was successfully accomplished in July 1998 in 74 days, 20 hours, 58 minutes, traveling more than 22,600 nautical miles (26,000 miles or 41,855 km). This achievement set a new Guinness World Record for a diesel powered vessel. The nautical mile or knot, is a unit of speed equal to approximately 1.15078 miles per hour on land (1.852 km). Solar power cannot compete with diesel engines. This boat is though one of the links in the evolution, or archaeology of efficient hulls.

CIRCUMNAVIGATION MILESTONE EXPEDITION ESTIMATES

CLIMATE CHANGER - The above table illustrates one of the most likely ocean awareness expedition routes, known as the 'Sunshine Route,' showing the time elapsed in days for 7 knots average cruising speed, including times for 5 and 6 knot averages - allowing for 10% downtime and 36 days in ports. Hence, although the objective is to reduce the current solar circumnavigation record from 584 days, the event in not an outright non-stop yacht competition in the offshore racing sense. It remains to be seen how accurate such a prediction might be. In this table we only allowed 36 days for provisioning and PR but added a 10% contingency for servicing, that could be used for additional time in ports. As a Climate Changing event, performance is one of the main criteria, especially concerning the possibilities for a transition to low carbon shipping and the contribution this might make in combating global warming.

USE THE LINKS ABOVE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PROPOSED WORLD ROUTE WAYPOINTS

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/voyage-planner

https://www.planetsolar.org/

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-circumnavigation-by-solar-powered-boat

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