Sailing around the world gave me an opportunity to feel the remarkable performance of wool garments, while encountering the fury of Mother Nature, such as the Roaring Forties in the Southern Ocean. The extreme conditions during the Southern Ocean crossing with freezing temperatures and wind speeds of up to 80 knots, made me wonder if it would be possible to enhance the performance of clothes made from natural materials with wearable electronics.

Sadly, I also witnessed the unpleasant sight of plastic pollution in some of the most beautiful parts of the ocean network. Microplastics scattered across the Solomon Sea posed great concern for the on-board seawater filtration system and the quality of drinking water it produced. Abandoned plastic fishing nets that were lost or discarded across the Atlantic Ocean and in the Philippine Sea were continuous sources of navigational hazard, not to mention the grave dangers they present to marine life.

At the end of my circumnavigation, I was committed to further explore the potential of combining the performance of natural materials with the efficiency of technological innovations, especially on the clothes that we wear. Not only has this concept provided tangible solutions for effective exploration of our natural habitat since time immemorial, but also it can be one of the main solutions to reverse the devastating impact of fast fashion and discarded synthetic materials on our oceans and the planet as a whole.