Will Biodiesel Ever Work For Boaters?

San Francisco powers its Red & White sightseeing fleet with biodiesel. Seattle’s King County Water Taxi uses biodiesel to move people across Puget Sound.

- Elaine Lembo

On the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Cup, which bills itself as the most environmentally responsible sailboat race in the United States, has fueled the event’s Class 40 fleet (for powering to and from the dock) with biodiesel since 2012, and plans to do so again in 2018. In 2015, the Volvo Ocean Race filled boats with bio-diesel during the stopover in Newport, Rhode Island, and used the fuel for the shoreside Race Village’s diesel generators. Sailors for the Sea endorses biodiesel’s use as a best practice in the group’s Clean Regattas certification program.

In 2008, skipper and conservationist Pete Bethune used biodiesel to power his wave-piercing power trimaran Earth race during a 60-day circumnavigation. This year, the tall ship and floating classroom Oliver Hazard Perry filled up with it for a voyage from New England to Cuba.

And yet despite the trend of biodiesel becoming more publicly accepted — and despite eco-minded boaters of all stripes seeking alternatives to petroleum diesel — the renewable fuel still isn’t widely available at yacht club and marina fuel docks.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” says Robert Morton, a retired marine geologist, offshore ocean racer and a founder of the alternative energy company Newport Biodiesel. “Marinas don’t want to put a tank in because they’re afraid people won’t buy it. Boaters who want to buy it can’t find a marina where they can buy it.”

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