Wonderboat wows Tauranga crowds

By Graham Skellern
It looks like a weta on water - and it has fascinated hundreds of people in Tauranga.
The unique bio-diesel powered Earthrace boat spent two days over Easter berthed next to the Kestrel at the Landing at the start of a year-long promotional tour.
And more than 1200 visitors wanted to take a closer look inside the $3 million tri-hull wave piercer, the first of its kind in the world.
The sleek, silver machine with two wings and the sort of cockpit normally reserved for jet planes will next year try to break the round-the-world powerboat record.
Skipper Peter Bethune reckons he can complete the 24,000 nautical miles in 65 days, well ahead of the present record of 74 days established by the British tri-hull displacement boat Cable and Wireless in 1998.
Whether it's under or through the water, the Auckland-built Earthrace will make good time. Fuelled by vegetable and fish oil, and at times animal fat or some types of algae, the boat has a top speed of 28 knots on long hauls; with a short range propeller it can travel as fast as 43 knots. It has two 540hp turbocharged and intercooled engines.
The boat, which promotes renewable fuel and marine conservation, is designed to pierce waves up to 12m high rather than bounce over them, and it can travel underwater to a depth of 7m.
Stepping inside Earthrace, the space is quite small and dark. You move through a tunnel, past the $10,000 toilet and the door to the engines below, into the cockpit. The interior is fitted with light, black carbon.
The cockpit has two racing bucket seats where the boat is steered - but there aren't as many dials there as I would have thought.
Further into the interior is a wider tunnel containing four pipe cots and four bunks for the eight-strong promotional crew. The sleeping arrangements will be reduced to four when the racing crew chase the record next March and April.
The exterior is made of carbon and kevlar, and the two wings or horns are used as ducts to get clean air down into the engines.
The Earthrace Charitable Trust, organising the Bio-diesel Around the World Challenge, is talking to Tauranga City Council and Tourism Bay of Plenty about having the city's name attached to the back of the boat.
"Every boat has a home port and I'd be happy if Tauranga takes it on. The ball is in their court," said Mr Bethune, refusing to say how much it will cost the city for the name association.
"We are aiming to get one million people through the boat - I'm pretty sure it will be one of the highest profile powerboats in the world for a year or two and that provides plenty of promotion and benefits for the city," he said.
After Earthrace returns from the challenge later next year, it would be moored in Tauranga when it's not involved in other activities. "I'd say it would be here up to three months a year," said Mr Bethune.
Earthrace - launched five weeks ago - powered out of Tauranga harbour yesterday, heading for Thames and back to Auckland for further sea trials.
Over the next three months it will be visiting 35 places around New Zealand and then in July will head for the United States, taking in another 40 cities on a promotional and fundraising tour before attempting the global record.
Hamilton-born Mr Bethune, a former oil exploration engineer who now makes camera-controlled robots, says he can't wait to sail Earthrace down the length of the Mississippi River.