Public Funding for Ocean Discovery Yachts Limited

H2Eau Projects is a yacht refit & design management company headquartered in Plymouth, UK, specialising in delivering sustainable solutions for "upcycling" sailing yachts by utilising innovative marine tech and the very latest build materials. Through Innovate UK Edge and Innovation funding for Sustainable UK Materials and Manufacturing the project is being supported to develop innovative production mould yacht tooling. The project is focused heavily on sustainability and technology and aims to utilise recycled carbon fibre (rCF) with hybrid recycled core and bio-based epoxy resin to develop a super lightweight and structurally strong innovative composite matrix based on sustainable methods of manufacture to support towards a greener marine industry. Materials used in typical manufacture are not optimised, not recyclable or sustainable and the average discarded waste of tooling weight is a lot more compared to the boat built. Currently, unfortunately the typical boat building mould tooling is not designed or manufactured supporting towards sustainable manufacture. The project team assembled from leading marine industry experts and manufacturers and project managed by Dan Couchman of H2eau, brings together a unique mix of multi-disciplinary skills and cross-industry expertise in materials, chemistry, processing, engineering, design, and innovation in sustainable composite technologies. The project is also being supported by the National Composite Centre and the SW Marine Business Technology Centre at Oceansgate in Plymouth. The support opens access to the latest technology, composite manufacturing processes and leading technical expertise and skills. The project's material focus is on carbon fibre, which has long been the preferred ultimate material of choice for the manufacturing of boats since it's an extremely strong, yet light weight material and provides a significant performance increase. Unfortunately, 95% of carbon fibre ends up in landfill. Since it is not biodegradable, it will stay in the ground forever so the project is very keen to find solutions that will work within boat building to reduce waste particularly from non-biodegradable materials, as this is an even more relevant important factor in saving the planet. The project has therefore been trialling and testing the latest generation carbon fibre recovery systems, in particular a recycled range of 100% recycled carbon fibre nonwoven mats. These mats provide an excellent balance of mechanical properties, formability and high-quality surface finish. Utilising recycled carbon fibre is a game changing approach to marine manufacturing and where technology meets sustainability. The project completion is scheduled for October 2023 when results will be published.