Students achieve robot boat Atlantic Crossing - but not as planned
by Sail-World Cruising on 8 Mar 2014
Unmanned sailing boat with Guernsey fisherman who found it SW
Students, scientists and other enthusiasts have been trying to do it for years - get an unmanned sailing boat across the Atlantic. Now a group of American students have done it - but not quite the way they wanted.
The five-foot (1.5m) boat, named Crimson Tide, was launched in South Carolina on 1st December 2012, to test the effects of tides and weather. Instead, their boat sailed and drifted clear across the Atlantic to end up discovered by a Guernsey fisherman.
Paris Broe-Bougourd came across the boat while fishing this month south of Guernsey, found the images of the pupils from the Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey and contacted them through the contact details left on the boat.
The sail had snapped off, but the GPS was still working, which had alerted the students that the boat was no longer moving. Hearing about the storms in the UK, they had feared the worst, but were delighted when contacted by the fisherman
An excited Mr Broe-Bougourd told the BBC: 'I am going to repair all the damage, put a new sail on it and take it to the north of the island and set her off again. 'I have spoken to the school and they asked me to let it go.'
Lisa Swanson, teacher at the Morristown-Beard School, said, 'We had put in goodies, a flash drive and a T-shirt into the boat, but those have been lost. The students heard about the storms Britain has had and feared the worst.
'We hope now it will go south to the Canaries and then back to us eventually. It will be quite an adventure.'
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