TOF Wins First Place in Science Category

EuropeJanuary 24, 2018

Robey Naish Presented the award to the representative of the Ocean Foundation, Alexis Valauri-Orton. (from left), Copyright: ctillmann / Messe Düsseldorf

Together with the Prince Albert II of the Monaco Foundation, boot Düsseldorf and the German Sea Foundation awarded the ocean tribute Award to particularly ambitious and future-oriented projects in the fields of industry, science and society.

Frank Schweikert, board member of the German Sea Foundation, and windsurfing legend Robby Naish present the award to the representative of the Ocean Foundation, Alexis Valauri-Orton.
Exhibition boss Werner M. Dornscheidt was so enthusiastic about the committed companies and ideas that he increased the prize money for the winners from 1,500 to 3,000 euros per category.

The first award of the evening went to Friedrich J. Deimann for the development of the Green Boats in the Industry category. Laudator exhibition boss Werner Matthias Dornscheidt certified the Bremen enterprise a particularly large innovation power. The aim of Green Boats is to create an alternative to conventional plastic yachts, plastic surfboards and other plastic products with modern and sustainable materials. Sustainable flax fibers are used instead of glass fibers, and instead of polyester resins based on petroleum, Green Boats uses linseed oil-based resins. Where sandwich materials are used, the young company uses cork or paper honeycomb. Compared to traditional manufacturing companies, Green Boats saves at least 80 percent CO2 in the production of water sports products.

The Science Award Winner, through its International Ocean Acidification Initiative, aims to create a network of scientists to observe, understand, and report to the Ocean Foundation on marine chemical developments.

Frank Schweikert, board member of the German Sea Foundation, and windsurfing legend Robby Naish presented the award to the representative of the Ocean Foundation, Alexis Valauri-Orton. Together with its partners, the Washington-based company has developed starter kits to monitor sea acidification. These laboratory and field kits, also known as “GOA-ON” (The Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network), are capable of performing high-quality measurements for one tenth of the cost of previous measurement systems. Through its initiative, the Ocean Foundation has trained over 40 scientists and resource managers in 19 countries and supplied GOA-ON packages to ten countries.

In the category Society, actor Sigmar Solbach gave the eulogy to the Dutch company Fairtransport. The transport company from Den Helder wants to make fair trade even cleaner and fairer. Instead of importing fairly traded products by conventional means, the company ships selected goods to Europe via a privately owned merchant ship. The goal is to build a green trading network with fair products. Currently, two old traditional sailing ships are used for the transport.

The “Tres Hombres” runs an annual route between Europe, all islands in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean and the American continent. The “Nordlys” runs in the European coastal trade, in the North Sea and in the Greater Europe. Fairtransport is working to replace the two cargo gliders with modern sailing-powered merchant ships. The Dutch company is the first emission-free transport company in the world.