Van Hall Larenstein team wins Fairplay award Frisian Solar Challenge
Students and teachers of Van Hall Larenstein participated, together with AOC Friesland, in the Frisian Solar Challenge 2008. On Saturday, June 28, they finished in Leeuwarden. They won the Fairplay award for the assistance they lent to other teams, and for rescuing a skipper from the water. In their own class the team ended in sixth place.
The six-day race past the "Elf steden" (eleven cities) of Friesland started on June 23. The Griene Sinnefretter (Green Sun Eater) had to rely on the sun, just like the 47 other participants.
The team participated in the solar boat race in a "climate neutral" fashion with their ship De Griene Sinnefretter . Only Van Hall-Larenstein executed the construction and organisation in a CO2 neutral way. And in order to celebrate that success, climate friendly beer was present.
"We may not have a technical background, but we know so much more about sustainable energy, so we made the whole race climate neutral," says team captain Theike Roelofs. It was arranged, for example, that the seven person following team could travel from "kluunplaats" (place where the road has to be crossed) to "kluunplaats" with a Saab Biofuel and a Ford Flexifuel to assist the crew. The cars use bio-ethanol and also transported the camping equipment and provisions, among which 10 crates of Gulpener climate neutral beer. "It took a bit of an effort to talk them into donating the crates, but when we mentioned the name Wubbo Ockels, who came up with the idea for the race, Gulpener quickly saw the publicity benefits," according to Roelofs.
Moreover, the solar boat was built using green electricity and of all components of the solar boat the production energy was calculated. Roelofs: "We will buy those off with climate certificates, for which we already charterd a number of sponsors through the university's network." The new, climate neutral dimension of the race is greatly appreciated by the other universities and "hogescholen", according to Roelofs.
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