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Robot Boat Sails Into History By Finishing Atlantic Crossing (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time an autonomous sailing robot has completed the Microtransat Challenge by crossing the Atlantic from Newfoundland, Canada to Ireland. The Microtransat has been running since 2010 and has seen 23 previous entries all fail to make it across. The successful boat, SB Met was built by the Norwegian company Offshore Sensing AS and is only 2 metres (6.5 ft) long. It completed the crossing on August 26th, 79 days and 5000 km (3100 miles) of sailing after departing Newfoundland on June 7th. Further reading: A Fleet of Sailing Robots Sets Out To Quantify the Oceans.
This is a 2 meter vessel, not a large racing hull built to be fast (and nothing but fast). Using the page you link to, the most useful comparison would be the single-handed records, and the one from 1987 which was about 11.5 days was in a 26 meter hull! And this is the smallest vessel on the list. You are probably not going to get a 2 meter vessel to tear along at an average speed of 7.5 m/sec which would be needed for that 11.5 day crossing.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
You're a landlubber, I take it?
The Atlantic waves are quite an obstacle for a 2m boat.
Even drifting tar (and garbage) is a problem when you're that small.
For the first time an autonomous sailing robot...
From the linked article:
https://www.apnews.com/f6d0e2a...
The Sailbuoy competed in the “unmanned” class, which allows operators to change its course along the way. There’s a separate “autonomous” class that prohibits any such communication.