Narrowly escaping a fatal collision with an 804-foot tanker might suggest so.
On its third bid at an unprecedented transatlantic journey, the autonomous vessel designed and built by college students from Rhode Island has made it much farther than the first two aborted attempts earlier this summer.
Not only that, the solar-powered, GPS-guided boat is still motoring in the direction of its destination — Sanlúcar, Spain.
“It’s been going really nicely,” said Dylan Rodriguez, who along with his teammates has returned to college. “She’s been averaging 25 miles a day.”
Wednesday, Scout, which at best can only travel a few miles an hour, had made it more than 265 miles from Sakonnet Point since its Aug. 24 launch. Due to its zigzagging course — Scout is at the mercy of winds and tides when its batteries are drained and not yet recharged — the vessel had actually traveled nearly 500 miles.
Scout apparently set a record for autonomous surface vessels when it logged more than 60 miles, according to Rodriguez.
Although they equipped the 12-foot kayak-shaped vessel with software to guide it to Spain and solar panels to charge its batteries, Scout’s designers have no control over their creation while it is at sea.
That’s why they could do nothing but hold their breath when they learned from marine traffic reports that Scout was potentially in the path of the crude oil tanker Yasa Golden Dardanel. Bound for Portland, Maine, the tanker ended up coming within six-tenths of a mile, possibly even closer, to Scout.
When Scout kept transmitting its location, it was clear it had avoided a disaster at sea.
“Crossed paths with a monster,” the team wrote on Facebook. “Let’s hope for very few run-ins like this from here on out.”
Other small problems have surfaced, including a bug in the computer coding that has sent Scout on a more direct route than planned, but one that could mean more time in shipping lanes off the East Coast and Spain.
As of midweek, Scout was on the Georges Bank fishing grounds, south of Nova Scotia. It still had another 3,000-plus miles to reach its destination.
Scout is progressing slower than it would have if its journey had begun earlier in the summer when the weather was less stormy and there was more daylight to power the craft. At this rate, it could take four months for Scout to cross the Atlantic.
But Rodriguez isn’t discouraged.
“It’s almost 10 percent of the way there,” he said.
To monitor how Scout is doing, go to www.gotransat.com/tracking.
No comments:
Post a Comment