If you were the scion of a wealthy British banking family what would you do with your spare time? While a list of extravagant activities may come to mind, it’s doubtful that building a boat entirely out of plastic bottles and sailing it from California to Australia would be among the immediate considerations. That is however, exactly what David de Rothschild plans to do on his recycled ship which is currently being built in San Francisco.

The 11,000 mile trip is hardly an easy one, particularly considering the fact that the ship has never been tested. The trip is also estimated to take over 100 days. Crazy? Many may think so. However, it’s clear that de Rothschild is making a statement. He hopes to relay a message to the world about the importance of recycling as he sails his recycled vessel, which is to be later recycled at the end of his voyage.

The boat is made of entirely recycled materials except for the masts, which of course, are made of metal. The ship will be created from thousands of bottles then to be wrapped with SRPET (self reinforcing polyethylene terephthalate). The hull of the boat will be made entirely of bottles, around 13,000 of them to be exact. This project is being created in San Francisco, and the process of manufacturing this boat is lengthy. Each bottle needs to be stripped of its label, cleaned, then filled with dry ice which essentially makes the bottle rigid. The catamaran of sorts has pontoons on which the bottles are then attached to, without the use of any resin or glue. Once put together it is expected to weigh around 9 tons. While the cost of the manufacturing of the “Plastiki” is unknown, it is known that only about 10% of the materials used are non-recycled materials.

The boat was recently named the “Plastiki” in reference to a balsa wood ship, “Kon-Tiki”, that sailed across the Pacific Ocean by Norwegian sailer Thor Heyerdah in 1947.

De Rothschild is nonetheless, still traveling in style. The ship will be fully equipped with two wind turbines as well as solar power to 12-volt batteries which will power several laptops, a GPS, and SAT phones. The ship will also include a crew of around six people including several sailors and scientists to insure de Rothschild’s safe voyage.

The safety of this expedition however, is being questioned by many. Most believe that de Rothschild, while bold and innovative, is also being extremely risky as the strength of this boat against a long journey of treacherous waters is questionable. Regardless of any safety issues, de Rothschild insists that the boat will set sail in August. Only time and travel will tell if this “bottle boat” will sink or swim.