SYSTEM 001 | First Mission | Cleaning Oceans | The Ocean Cleanup

I like projects that start out with a clean sheet of paper. The difficulty is of course that you cannot compare to anything. And we are using materials and we are in an environment that has hardly been modelled. So there are a lot of things that you just have to try a first time and simply see what happens. A couple of months ago when this mission was scheduled we all had good hopes that we would just be fishing plastic out of Wilson. After the first mission it became clear that Wilson did capture plastic but it didn't retain the plastic. So we have not seen the massive plastic build-up inside the system we had hoped for. So the main objectives of the trip number three was to carry out some tests to understand why Wilson was not retaining the plastic as we expected. We had a first look at the system again this morning. Everything is still looking good, we need to do some minor maintenance, but so far so good. We had different tests, some what we call drifter tests, where small drifters with GPS on them were released and then we could compare their trajectory to Wilson. So the main goal is to collect microplastics from the surface. Then we will collect it and analyse it here on board. I see one. 20 degrees, over starboard, 70-80 metres. We have also been able to capture a few ghost nets. Today we are doing the long expected and long prepared dye test. This is a special marine dye which is biodegradable and non-toxic. And we would just pour a line of like 300 metres long in front of the system and we would have drones flying that would just record how the system interacted with the water and the ocean, which we could very well track thanks to the dye. Not a perfect landing, but it will do. All these tests were carried out, but not as many as we intended to do. No matter how well prepared we are, we cannot control the weather. It's such a big factor. The name Pacific can be very misleading. We are 1,000 miles, close to 2,000 kilometres from the coast. So the waves have a lot of time to develop. Just before arriving we had five or six metre waves. Winds of up to 40 knots during gusts and that makes the waves quite steep. When the waves are steep, Wilson is trying to follow, but to follow it, it actually has to bend a lot. Even though the system has been out here for only four months, it has been through more than a million cycles already. And we have modelled everything we could have modelled. But there's always reality and reality and modelling. So all of a sudden we went from a maintenance mission, an observation mission, to a salvage mission. If we can lessen this one. I might be able to go close. We've got hold of it. We have secured the towhead. It's all fast here. That very same afternoon we recovered the small piece. We did an opening procedure, let the system straighten out again, recovered the big part. I'm afraid it's not over yet. Most likely we will have to tow back Wilson to shore. Looking at the weather conditions, it was much safer to tow it back to Hawaii. I would say just start heading towards Hawaii. Take it easy to start with and then monitor at all times very carefully. This system was supposed to be in the ocean for at least one year. And then to see it fail after four months after all, it hurts a bit. We needed to find a nickname for the towhead to make it easier to accept. Little Wilson, Willie, Little Willie. And in the end we settled on Wilma. We now have Wilson and Wilma. This is the very first time anyone has ever attempted anything like this. And if you look at what has been achieved, then that's quite phenomenal. It is a success because we have been able to use it as a testbed. And we will be able to correct some properties of the system to capture and retain the plastic better. Something like this should not come as a surprise. We are just learning to walk. We are just learning how we are going to tackle this problem. We can get a better system. It's only just the start.