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Ireland To Host Robotic Sailing Championships

Posted by samzenpus on from the scrub-the-robot-deck dept.

First time accepted submitter dertynan writes The WRSC people are out to make sailors redundant. The World Robotic Sailing Championships (and International Conference) is in Galway, Ireland next week. Around eleven teams are participating in this autonomous sailing event, across a number of courses, over four days.

14 comments

  1. "Aaaarrrrr" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .... as read by our robotic sailor overlord.

  2. A Little Perspective by d'baba · · Score: 1

    "The boats, up to 2.5 metres in length,..."

    1. Re:A Little Perspective by mrvan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This doesn't matter that much. Larger yachts sail more or less the same as smaller yachts; the main effect is that all forces are multiplied. For humans this makes a lot of difference: needing winches instead of pulling ropes by hand, being hit by the boom during a jibe changes from unpleasant to lethal, the ability to push off against the wall is greatly diminished, etc. For automatic sailing, however, the main effect will probably be cost rather than difficulty, as none of those factors are really important until material strenght becomes a problem. Smaller boats can even be more difficult to handle since the intertia is smaller compared to the wind forces (mass is cube of size, wind area square), making a smaller boat less stable.

    2. Re:A Little Perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After extensible sailing I can tell that the handling of small and big ships is pretty different, even the differences from one ship to another of the same size can vary a lot, and the forces on the ships don't are exactly multiplied as some are dismissed. Depending on the roughness of the sea it's handling can be very different,for example in rough sea a small ship is affected a lot more by the forces than a big ship, but the sails of big ship are more fragile due to the extreme wind forces that they are exposed.

    3. Re:A Little Perspective by opentunings · · Score: 1

      The Warsash Maritime Academy uses (or at least used to use) miniature ships to train captains how to maneuver oil tankers.

      http://gizmodo.com/5285866/tiny-adorable-oil-tanker-makes-pilots-better-trained-slightly-awkward

  3. Great Irish innovation by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... so that they can enjoy a Guinness while the boats sail themselves

    1. Re:Great Irish innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      more like enjoy a Galway Hooker

    2. Re:Great Irish innovation by bazmail · · Score: 1

      Its actually quite a nice drink. Theres nothing like a pint of it in Salthill on a sunny day.

      Named after a local traditional style of sailing vessel, not a reference to the US slang term for a prostitute. Obviously.

    3. Re:Great Irish innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... so that they can enjoy a Guinness while the boats fail themselves.

      Fixed.

    4. Re:Great Irish innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of the new breed of micro brewery offerings, Tom Crean's is the best:
      It's not overloaded with hops like most micro brews. Galway Bay isn't too bad though. O'Hara's offer a nice stout.

  4. Jim Clark's yacht by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jim Clark (founded Netscape, Silicon Graphics) had a huge yacht (over 100 feet) that was supposedly autonomous sailing, but I can't find much in the way of details, other than nice photos of luxury appointments, and Jim standing with his new supermodel wife.

  5. a slightly simpler option by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    Much as I'd like to build up a self-navigating boat, that's above my skill level. But let me put in a plug here for Tippecanoe Boats . Will's kits are pretty easy to build, quite customizable, and a blast to sail.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw