26 miles passed in a boat made of mushrooms and lived to tell the story | US news

HENa Clear threw his boat in the waters on the Island of Catalina in the morning, still in the morning, in the early August. Target: The open ocean switch to San Pedro just south of Los Angeles, 26.4 miles.

But from a closer look, Shoemaker’s ski was not an ordinary boat. Brown yellow and tissue rugged, made of mushrooms, or rather enlarged. If his journey was successful, he would mark the world’s longest open water ride in a boat built of this unique material.

With a compass with the phone, a Gopro camera, a radio and pusula glued to the life vest, the shoemaker left the worst of the estimates shorter than 6 o’clock to avoid the worst of the estimates. However, within three hours and for the ninth mile, the coastline began to seas out of sight.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a great animal that violated the waters. To his left, a fin whale polished his shimmering tail, then slowly followed. While the 50 FT creature followed him three miles, Shoemaker found the power to finish his hymen.

“Psychedelic was like an experience,” he says, ”he says.

When he still stumbled on the shore with mushroom skiing, he embraced his artist and mycologist friends and his family. They all hoped that this journey would start a new wave of curiosity about the unusual mushroom material, claiming to be a more environmentally friendly option than the plastics commonly used in boats and other water in boats and other water.

From gallery walls to the open sea

Shoemaker began as an artist who created sculptures with mushrooms spread to his career. After graduating from Yale in 2020 with a MFA, he returned to Los Angeles and after he caught the unique behavior of mushrooms, he began to exhibit works of art that caught. Handmade ceramic vessels and blowing glass.

Eventually, his interests grew beyond the gallery walls. Shoemaker now belongs to a small community of scientists and artists who investigate the potential of fungal innovation as an alternative material that can be used in everything from skiing and floors to surfing boards.

The focus is Myselium, a yarn network that supports the growth of mushrooms and mushrooms. It is a very important connective tissue in the animal kingdom, although it tends to make the burden of its work underground or substrate. Founders of a biotechnology company named MyCoworks, a mycoworks, MyCoworks, a mycoworks, is known as Aquafung, the founding partner of an artist and a biotechnology company by Phil Ross, the mentor of Kunduracı, a mycoworks in the context of a biotechnology company. mushroom “leather” It can be used for furniture, bags and biomedical equipment. After preparing MyCoworks, Ross opened an open -source mycology research laboratory called Open Fung at Stanford University.

Ross argues that Aquafung has many attractive properties – such as plastic – such as light and floating, but without harmful footprints. “People hate styrofoam plastics in water washed on the shore, Ross says Ross. “[AquaFung] It can be broken biologically. It is very similar to the material that everyone hates. “

Shoemaker started to work on the first mycellium boat with Hateded Wild in 2024 Ganoderma polychromum mycelium Outside the Los Angeles studio. A fisherman used to serve as a fiberglass pattern changed his boat, then grew up in the mold holding a cannabis substrate with more than 300lbs to support his agriculture. After spreading my micro for almost four weeks, the shoemaker meticulously dried the boat composite. Building for a few months using fans.

After incubation, dried mycelium exhibits a strong, hydrophobic material. In touch, he feels rough and durable like cork. And the same consistency does not keep in color and texture – a proof of the savagery of mushrooms.

Trusting the prototype, shoemaker, began to look for appropriate support.

Shoemaker met Patrick Reed, the chief curator of Pasadena -based art organization Passionine ArtsIn December 2023, through mutual friends. After a studio visit, Reed flew from everything that the artist had to show him, and he remembered his conversations as “incredibly exciting and stimulating”. In line with the mission of supporting artists who continue their social change at the intersection of Fulcrum Arts, the couple entered an official collaboration at the beginning of 2024.

Shoemaker completed his second mushroom boat in June; Growing from the same wild nature Ganoderma Polychromum Mikeliium, a boat, a new fiberglass mold has spread more than 520lbs of a hemp with a hard substrate. The Shoemaker allowed the boat to grow for six weeks, and then it took three months to dry. In 107LBS, the new boat is three feet shorter, but 50% larger than volume for more floating and stability. It also contained a spine to increase tracking and hardness.

Aquafung enthusiasts, including mycologists, artists, fishermen, farmers and hobbies, are strong but new. The completion of Shoemaker’s boat points to the mushroom boat tested in the second water after Katy Ayers. Guinness world record What was the longest mushroom mycellium boat in the world in a Nebraska Lake in 2019 to grow, then testing.

“Many people didn’t think it was really possible, Ay Ayers, who raised his boat after he was inspired by a documentary called Super Fungi, says. “I reached the companies that really made biomalzams, and their spokesman did not trust the work, but I was sure and naive enough to give a chance and understand what the shortcomings were.”

The future… Mushroom?

Ayers and Shoemaker give credit to Mycology pioneers such as Ross because they make technology more accessible. And mushroom -based materials gradually emerge in the mainstream: in 2021, Stella McCartney consulted Ross, and the first clothes made of mushroom leather labed on the lab of the world made headlines.

Ross calls Sam’s journey “remarkable ve and hopes that other scientific institutions will inspire them to take this job more seriously. “[Sam] He did it before Stanford and Caltech and was in his backyard. All these areas are managed by designers and artists, and this is not the best scientists, but they are aware of the future in front of everyone. “

However, the shoemaker is careful about promising that mushrooms will only revolutionize the industry. It draws attention to the fact that it requires only one year of time and resources to produce a boat, one is still slower and heavier than an ocean boat purchased from the store.

“People are talking about a utopian future where mushrooms are eliminated. [but] This is not the silver bullets where boats are easier, ”he says. I am glad how far this project has gone, but there is a long way to go. “

For now, he plans to continue dialogue with other artists, mycologists and hobbies and to make open source summaries with more than 70 pages of research, methodology and diagram. A complete exhibition of materials and boats will take place in the field of Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena in October.

“There’s a 19 -year -old child who thinks that I can do it there ‘, and they can do it, Shoemaker says Shoemaker. “The biggest compliment they can pay for me is to build a better boat and make a more ambitious transition than mine.”

After Shoemaker’s success, Ayers sees hope for the future more mushrooms.

“I was expecting someone else to do it for years. When my boat went out, the first thing I think is, ‘Please try to try this record because it gives me a reason to try it again,’ ‘he says.