As we wait patiently for self-driving cars to become viable, self-sailing boats are already a reality. A Californian company, Saildrone, rents self-sailing boats to scientists, environmental groups, commercial fishermen, and other organizations seeking to collect ocean data affordably and efficiently.
Collecting ocean data is typically an expensive and time-consuming practice, and relies on large crews who spend months out on the water.
But, as Salidrone’s founders explain, their self-sailing boats can “cost-effectively and autonomously gather data over large ocean areas in any conditions.”
Each Saildrone boat is roughly 23 feet long, with a trimaran hull and carbon fiber sail. Interestingly, its stabilizer automatically adjusts the wing faster than a human sailor, and its rudder and keel can automatically right the boat if it is knocked over. When encountering potential hazards, the boat can also notify engineers by phone.
Every boat is also equipped with 13 sensors to record data on wind, temperature, humidity, salinity, dissolved oxygen and fluorescence. After collecting data, Saildrone boats transmit it back to shore via satellite.
Interestingly, renting a single boat from Salindrone costs $2,500 per day compared to the traditional research vessel, whose equipment and a crew typically cost up to $80,000 per day. Unsurprisingly, then, Salindrone boats have been hotly sought after in the ocean research community.
For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently used a Saildrone boat with a traditional Fisheries Survey Vessel to monitor fish stocks in the Bering Sea in 2015.
Today, NOAA is working on an on-going project to use Salindrones for supplementing the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array in the Pacific, which provides data for an early warning system of El Nino (warming) and La Nina (cooling) events in the eastern equatorial Pacific.
by Cherrie Kwok