2008-09 WWH Ballast water research
As part of a global science project, each boat collected water samples to contribute towards preserving the health and diversity of the world’s oceans. The project’s aim was to track the amount of ocean life and assess the risk of invasive marine species, the by-product of ships ‘ballasting’ between ports (gaining stability by putting a heavy substance in its bilge).
When a ship travels without cargo it takes on a ballast in the form of sea water, it naturally takes with it everything in the water, which is then discharged at the next point of loading. The problem with this is that the marine life in say, the coastal waters of the South China Sea, or the Gulf of Mexico, is nothing like that of the Arabian Gulf, or West Africa, and such non-indigenous or "alien" species can cause destructive and irreversible changes in the structure of biological communities, including serious population declines in native species.
Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) had led the field in adopting a practical commitment to environmental protection.
The project provided research data that was unique at the time. WWL could never hope to replicate the breadth of sampling, because its own ships plied fairly fixed routes, so the opportunity of taking samples along the Volvo Ocean Race route was not to be missed.
The samples were collected and processed onboard by the Media Crew Member (now the OBR) and were expected to show the kind of microorganism that is regularly transported in ballast water. The results were drawn up by Wallenius Water, BioThema, Oregon State University and University of Hawaii and presented in a scientific report called ‘A Global Mapping of Ocean Microbial Biomass’ – see links below.
https://www.2wglobal.com/globalassets/test-content/mini_esr_2008.pdf
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/4585214/a-global-mapping-of-ocean-microbial-biomass-wallenius-water