Nicolás Romero, CEO of Mallorcaventura, says that the pandemic made him stop and think about many things. One of them was climate change. And so this boat excursions operator considered creating a zero-emissions catamaran.
Blue Circle is the result and it will be launched this summer, the first 100% sustainable boat, as nothing similar has been designed in Mallorca before. In order to achieve this, Mallorcaventura has been working with another Mallorcan company, Trueworld, on fine-tuning the boat that is made with neutralised fibre and recycled materials.
The catamaran, 15 metres long and six metres wide, doesn't have as much capacity as his previous boat, which could accommodate 100 people. "We don't want to focus so much on mass tourism but on quality tourism," he explains. An aspect of the boat is that it will act as a type of marine observatory. Sensors will collect data about posidonia sea grass, oxygen in the water and temperature. All this will be included in a Trueworld database in order to have real-time analysis.
The investment has been close to one million euros ."It's much more expensive than a conventional boat. We know that it is a risk to be pioneers in something like this because we've paid almost double for it. We reckon that manufacturing this type of vessel will cost 40% less in ten years' time." The batteries alone, he explains, cost around 150,000 euros.
Nevertheless, "it's important to take care of the environment". And in this regard, Romero believes that "this type of project should have some form of subsidy from European funds, but the reality is that it is not included".