Day 18 S/V Kaisei: The Strength of Sustainable Design

Friday, 21 August 2009
Lat: 38°51’ N Lon: 133°23’ W

Melanie Smith welcomes the Kaisei team as an assistant to Norton Smith, her uncle and Kaisei’s consulting engineer. She has been a keystone figure in assisting Norton with the final construction and deployment of his marine debris cleanup prototypes; including the previously mentioned Beach and Sweep. Completing his prototypes included designing the catchment nets and cod ends. In addition, she has recorded data, helped in the physical deployment, done repairs, and surveyed the successes and difficulties of the prototypes for design alterations.
Melanie joins Project Kaisei with a strong background in design, construction, and fabrication. Melanie’s initial design focus started in fashion with an emphasis on renewable fibers and textile design. Her next frontier expanded to landscape design and land planning with a focus on xeric
Her concern and exposure to environmental issues started at a young age. Starting with her father’s pioneering work in environmental issues and the birth of his organization, Whole Systems Foundation. Still in action today, Whole Systems Foundation provides funding for a number of environmental projects, including organic farming, environmental education, alternative energy research, and resource management programs. Melanie worked with her father for over fifteen years spearheading his environmental initiatives. When he passed, Melanie, Norton, and her brothers assumed the responsibility for Whole Systems Foundation.
On Project Kaisei, Melanie and Norton have been using the joint efforts of their creative and innovative backgrounds to better the environment through passive catchment devices used to capture marine debris. Today they launched the “Atoll”, which is a device obtaining an enclosed ring which sits on the surface of the water with a shallow catchment net inside. As the waves lap over the edge of the ring, the intention is to capture the marine debris inside the ring passively without harming marine life. Melanie and Norton noticed with the Atoll is not effective if there are strong winds. In essence, the wind washes the marine debris through the Atoll and nothing sinks to the cod end due to the lack of current flow.
Another device deployed this afternoon was nicknamed “Norton’s Giza” for its pyramid-like shape. This inverted pyramid rides the surface water with a sea anchor, 30 ft below the bottom of the pyramid. The function of this sea anchor is to have the surface pyramid be more stable with swells; as the swells flush into the pyramid and then slowly the pyramid would rise after the swell has passed. This fluctuation approach is designed to flush water through the pyramid capturing marine debris through the cod end. Norton’s Giza looked promising by capturing smaller particles of marine debris, having a one-way valve trapping the marine debris in the cod end. However, the standing winner of all of these deployment devices is the Beach with the least affect on organic organisms and capturing the most marine debris. Melanie and Norton’s strive for these passive collecting prototypes expand to future deployment on a larger scale, capturing the most amount of marine debris while affecting the least amount of biota.
landscaping and open space development. Melanie’s design experience continued as sustainable design consultant with the construction and design of buildings using an energy efficient approach.