2023 Edition

Fabrication of a recycled plastic sailing boat that questions the quantity of waste in and on the shores of waterways. 

«It is from a study of a small sailing boat: the Vaurien, designed by Jean-Jacques Herbulot in 1951, originally conceived to make sailing accessible to the working class and built with the remains of post-war plywood, that Arthur Grethen and Léo Sprimont devoted their second cycle to a common reflection: that of a new sailing dinghy. They crossed their views and concerns about the life cycle, reuse, and recycling in design, with that of the position of ESAD Valenciennes, anchored on the banks of the Scheldt river. The significant presence of plastic waste, in the waters, and on the shores, led these two designers to question the collection and reuse of this waste to confront our place in the cycle of materials and our capacity to act as consumers and users» Elizabeth Hale.

After reporting all the plastic waste near the Sheldt, we decided to give a direction to the project that talks about this subject. So we thought of using recycled plastic as a functional object that uses plastic for its quality and also materializes its quantity. Here came the idea of the boat inspired by the story of “Le Vaurien”. 

All along the project we collected materials along the Scheldt and started to transform plastic on our own to carry out materiality tests and ways to construct with it: we finally found a way to weld to assemble.

We crossed all the knowledge we got and searched to design our boat inspired by the Vaurien. Our process was also a multiplication of drawing, maquette, 3D modelization, and 3D printing that we tested in real conditions. 

After designing and assessing the feasibility of the Vau.R308, we started a collaboration with several professionals in a radius of less than 100km to build it.

Firstly Bel Albatros, a plastic recycling company based in Brussels. Their members, Guilain Sévrière and Grégoire Hupin have placed their trust in us and we all based our project on an amicable contract of a virtuous exchange. We were able to develop all the company’s production methods, the different plate sizes and thicknesses useful for the creation of our boat, but also all the milling work to be able to cut the parts of our assembly.

From the beginning, we also had the support of the Cercle de Voile. Through the exchange that was created with the actors of the sailing association, we were able to test the boat’s sealing and buoyancy while privileged access to the advice and experiences of each one. At the same time, we were able to extend our collaboration by tackling the issues of re-use, which are not very present in the nautical sector. We designed the VAU.R308 to readapt the mast and sail from a Laser model: a common four-meter plastic monohull dinghy.

During exchanges with the Cercle de Voile de Valenciennes at certain stages of the year, we learned about the difficulty of repairing and re-using roto-moulded plastic boats. We have partly created the Vau.R 308 intending to question the recycling of plastic boats which could be repaired or recycled into another to readapt the already existing functional and standardized fittings. Limiting the production of these elements, which is also expensive.