Satakunta University of Applied Sciences (SAMK) has been taking environmentally friendly actions in the Central Baltic region by leading several national and international projects over the past few years.
CBSmallPorts is an international project started in June 2020 and led by SAMK with the focus on energy efficiency in the small ports of Central Baltic region as well as marketing activities. The project works on improving energy supply and its efficient use by boaters and small port users in the CB area.
In May 2021, CBSmallPorts started a social media campaign, collaborating with Sailing Fuga. Within this campaign, Sailing Fuga had a sailing trip to the small ports around the Baltic Sea region including selected small ports located in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden which was split in two parts. In general, the objective of this campaign was to raise awareness on the Central Baltic Sea, energy efficiency and environmentally friendly sailing as well as spreading a survey about energy efficiency of the small ports.
Sailing Fuga collaboration
Sailing Fuga based in Rauma, aims to raise awareness on the Baltic Sea and show a different way of sailing. Sailing Fuga’s team had participated in different projects using environmentally friendly equipment and new sustainable technologies to make sailing safer and eco-friendlier.
In this collaboration project, Sailing Fuga’s main goal was to promote the small ports of CB area by exploring this region and taking pictures and videos for the social media campaign (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube) while sailing with energy efficient equipment to show a different way of sailing. Also, they had a live stream of their sailing adventure on their YouTube channel during the whole journey which gave them the possibility to show their route, share their thoughts on the journey, and to show how to tie the knots, etc.
During the trip, both Sailing Fuga and CBSmalPorts team shared the sailing adventure by posting pictures and videos of CB area and small ports on social media through the whole journey.
The other goal of this collaboration was for Sailing Fuga to spread information about a survey regarding energy efficient services for boaters and small ports owners as well as energy efficient investments in the small ports.
Basically, Sailing Fuga distributed the survey which is still ongoing, and the team also handed out business cards about the project to the small ports’ owners during the journey. The business cards included a description of the project and a link to the survey.
The CBSmallPorts team is collecting data from the small ports and after analyzing the survey the results will be published in a report during the autumn 2022.
Equipment and sponsors
Sailing Fuga had a lot of energy efficient equipment onboard. They had two separate solar power systems including 240Wp panel as well as two 280Wp panels installed for the expedition, so 800Wp solar power in total. They equipped their boat with a UP400 hydrogen generator backup power source and their main engine was the final backup for all the electrical equipment onboard. At last, they equipped the boat with a 700Ah battery bank which was powered by the power generating equipment.
They installed a measuring device powered by Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) in order to measure air and the sea’s temperature 24/7 and to automatically send the data based on their locations to FMI.
Overall, Sailing Fuga was provided with a variety of equipment from different energy supplier companies as sponsors. These companies provided Sailing Fuga’s team with the hydrogen generator backup power source, solar panel, battery bank and other environmentally friendly equipment which made their journey eco-friendlier.
The trip
After planning the route and installing the energy efficient equipment onboard, Sailing Fuga started exploring Baltic Sea and the small ports. Sailing Fuga had a two-part sailing trip to the small ports of the CB area. Within each trip, they explored different small ports of the region and returned to Rauma.
The first part of the journey was during May 2021 starting from one of the small ports of Rauma. During this trip, Sailing Fuga explored throughout the coast of Southern Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Bornholm (Denmark), Southern Sweden and Åland Islands.
The second part was during the first half of August 2021. During the second trip, they explored the northern parts of the Baltic Sea. As the last destination of the trip, Sailing Fuga visited the small port of Gävle in Sweden and they familiarized with the port and the energy efficient investments which some of them had been made through PortMate project (another Central Baltic project before CBSmallPorts). After visiting Gävle, Sailing Fuga returned to Rauma across the southern part of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Within the exploration of the Central Baltic Sea, Sailing Fuga had to make changes to their plans due to the Covid-19. While visiting small ports of Sweden and Denmark, they were not allowed to get off the boat and get to the shores, so they had to end up rushing and return to Rauma earlier. Also, they had planned to visit southernmost part of the Baltic Sea and sail coasts of Poland and Germany as well but, due to the Covid-19 and restrictions they had to change the plan and skip this part entirely.
Sailing Fuga experience
Overall, the Sailing Fuga experience was a great cooperation and a great opportunity for both Sailing Fuga and CBSmallPorts project to promote small ports of the CB area and improve the marketing of the ports as well as gaining more knowledge about the energy supplies and energy efficiency investments in this region.
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Authors: Sina Khabbazi, Hanna Rissanen, Teemu Heikkinen, Alberto Lanzanova
Pictures: S/Y Fuga