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XLast month in a high-profile ceremony in New York City, the X Prize Foundation announced the winners of the $1.4 mil-lion Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Chal- lenge. Two teams Elastec/American Marine from Illinois, the Grand Prize($1m) winner, and the second place ($300,000) team, NOFI from Tromsø, Norway, innovated and outperformed more than 350 entry submissions fromaround the world, far exceeding the rig- orous standards outlined in the competi-tion. (*Note: The third-place ($100,000) prize was not awarded, as none of the other finalist teams met the baseline re- quirements)The X Prize Foundation is a non-profit organization with the lofty ambition to help solve the world's engineering chal- lenges by creating and managing large- scale, global incentivized competitions. In this competition, the Deepwater Hori- zon blowout and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico led the foundation and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt ? who personally funded the prize purse ? tocreate the $1.4m Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge. This competition in particular high-lights not only the drive for prize money, rather the true innovation that emanates from academia, as well as the halls ofcorporations, large and small. In the case of team Elastec/American, taking thequantum leap from a floating, spinningutility bucket to the creation of the world?s fastest and most efficient oil spill recovery system was the investment of innovative minds, a talented workforce and the lure of the X-Prize competition.THE MISSIONThe X-Prize foundation targeted oil spill clean-up technology in the wake of Deepwater Horizon, challenging entre- preneurs, engineers and scientists world- wide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly efficient methods of capturing crude oil from the ocean sur- face. The 10 finalist teams ? each of which travelled to New York for the awards ceremony ? then had to demon- strate their cleanup systems individually during field testing over a 10-week pe- riod in the summer of 2011; the teamswere overseen by an panel of judges as they demonstrated their technology?s ability to recover oil from the sea-water surface Ohmsett ? the National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility ? in Leonardo, NJ, which is the largest outdoor saltwater wave/tow fa- cility in North America. The qualification to be considered for a top prize was stringent, as teams had to demonstrate an Oil Recovery Rate (ORR) above 2,500 gpm, with an Oil Re- covery Efficiency (ORE) of greater than 70%. Only Elastec/American Marine and54Maritime Reporter & Engineering News FEATURE WORKBOAT ANNUAL Marks the (Oil Clean Up) Spot Industrial disaster is often the impetus for innovation, and the maritime worldis no exception. Last year, in the wake of one of the worst oil pollution disas- ters in history, the X-Prize Foundation and Wendy Schmidt stepped up to fund a $1.4m competition to find a more efficient means to clean oil. ? by Greg Trauthwein, Editor Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge Competition ResultsTeam Comb CombCalmWaveWaveWave MEANMEANMEAN MEAN MEAN MEAN ORRORRORRORRORRORR 1Elastec 467089.5 470688.9463390.1 2.NOFI 271283 295891.9246674 3.Koseq 206587.9231198.2181877.6 4.OilShaver200790.7200892.6200688.8 5.Crucial 188871.3214979.7162662.8 6.Lamor 141392.5136291.4146593.6 7.Vor-Tek226957.3301472.1152542.5 8.OilWhale102142.8155744.648541 9.PPR 96292.1104596.987887.3 10.Voraxial69349.294163.944534.5 The Winning Team Elastec/American Marine madeamazing strides in the ability to effi- ciently remove oil from water, devis- ing a system that removed a staggering 4,670 gpm at 89.5% oil towater recovered efficiency. The winning team, which included Team Leader: Don Johnson and Team Members: Donnie Wilson, Jeff Cantrell Stewart Ellis, Charles Storey & Brian Orr, is pictured left. It is also worthy to note that The Glosten Associates, Inc.also was a member of the group. MR Nov.11 # 7 (50-56):MR Template 10/28/2011 11:39 AM Page 54