Monaco’s connection to automobile racing and boating is stamped throughout it, from the hairpin turns of its Formula One circuit to the five-deck superyachts docked at Port Hercule.
But its desires to be often known as a sustainability destination are less apparent.
Monaco’s “Green is the Latest Glam” campaign, launched in 2018, highlighted lots of the country’s environmental efforts. And a 2023 tourism campaign named sustainability as certainly one of three key pillars — alongside “Instagrammability” and digital nomad appeal — for attracting latest travelers.
Its green goals are at odds with its greenhouse-gas-emitting superyachts and beloved Formula One races. The latter’s carbon footprint amounted to greater than 223,000 tons of carbon dioxide across the 2022 season, in accordance with a Formula One report. But they do align with a latest boating competition E1 which races 100% electric-powered speedboats.
Monaco, a microstate known for glamour and wealth, is making an enormous push into sustainable tourism.
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Monaco is certainly one of six locations hosting the competition, which launched in Saudi Arabia in February.
In the course of the Monaco race on July 28, Bernard d’Alessandri, general secretary and managing director of Yacht Club de Monaco, said E1 showcases latest technology for boat racing.
“Before E1, it was unattainable to have a race with electric boats,” he said. “E1 has proven you possibly can.”
Like a high-tech hummingbird
Nine teams, co-piloted by one man and one woman, are competing in Racebirds, fully electric speedboats custom-built for E1. Akin to a high-tech hummingbird, its small wings, head and body are punctuated by an prolonged nose and a sleek metallic exterior.
A Racebird arrives in Monaco ahead of the race.
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Based on race organizers, the Racebird is a licensed zero-emission boat, which does not release oil or fuel into the water and creates around half the noise and fewer waves than typical motorized boats — all of which might distress marine life.
Race organizers also use robotic anchorless buoys to mark courses, which don’t damage seabeds like anchors do, said Rodi Basso, E1’s CEO and co-founder, and a former Formula One engineer.
A closeup of the boat raced by “Team Rafa,” a team owned by tennis star Rafael Nadal.
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For the reason that first race, organizers have step by step reduced the time and shipping containers needed to host the races. Now they’re working on constructing boats near race sites, quite than moving boats around for every competition, organizers said.
Basso said the race has already attracted the eye of vital “stakeholders” within the country, including Prince Albert II of Monaco.
“They’ve seen we’re serious concerning the values that we were attempting to construct,” he said. “They care concerning the way forward for yachting.”
Acceptance of electrical boating among the many elite
Racebird creator Sophi Horne said getting the eye of Monaco’s boating elite wasn’t easy.
She said only a few people believed within the Racebird during its design phase. However the race modified that, she said, recalling a recent meeting with a megayacht designer in Monaco she has long admired.
Model and actress Cara Delevingne, middle, with boat designer Sophi Horne and E1 co-founder and CEO Rodi Basso on the Venice Boat Show on June 4, 2022 in Venice, Italy.
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“Sitting at his office together with his naval architects going over the Racebird concept intimately, and for it to trigger a distinct way of considering — that was huge for me,” Horne said.
Horne is founder and chair of a separate company, Seabird, which focuses on electric powerboat design and development. She said she is now taking orders from local boating enthusiasts fascinated by going electric.
“They see the coolness of it, and so they want something their buddies do not have,” she said. “The Racebird is so different from what they’ve seen before … they need to know if we will make its baby sister, but something that may fit the entire family.”
The celebrity factor
E1’s celebrity factor is drumming up attention too — an intentional move for a race with boats that reach a top speed of 58 miles per hour, slower than Formula One H2O speedboats, which might go nearly 150 miles per hour.
The nine team owners — actor Will Smith, tennis player Rafael Nadal, singer Marc Anthony, NFL player Tom Brady, soccer star Didier Drogba, cricketer Virat Kohli, Formula One driver Sergio Perez, DJ/record producer Steve Aoki and billionaire businessman Marcelo Claure — are central characters within the races, with their names and faces emblazoned on marketing materials.
Team owners Didier Drogba and Tom Brady speak with Alejandro Agag, co-founder and chairman of the E1 Series, ahead of the E1 race in Venice, Italy — the second of the series.
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Brady and Drogba were spotted embracing on the VIP lounge in Monaco, after Brady’s team made it to the highest of the leaderboard following the fourth race of the season.
But team owners are called on to do greater than just cheer on their boats. E1 requires each owners and teams play an energetic role in marine conservation. E1 will crown a winner not only of the championship itself, but of its conservation program, Blue Impact. Team Nadal is working to guard the endangered seagrass meadows present in the Mediterranean Sea, which surrounds his native Mallorca, and Monaco, too.
The celebrity factor also brings conservation awareness to the general public, said professor Carlos Duarte, climate change scientist and E1’s chief scientist.
Onlookers watch Racebirds in Monaco in late July 2024. The ultimate two E1 races are scheduled to occur in Lake Como, Italy and Hong Kong.
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“Having people like Tom Brady discuss committing themselves to ocean motion has an enormous influence on public engagement,” he said. “Then we will discuss solutions, we will discuss latest technology, we will discuss what the communities are doing within the cities that we race in.”
The remaining two races within the E1 Series are scheduled to occur on Aug. 23 in Lake Como, Italy, followed by Hong Kong on Nov. 10.
