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Robot Boat Sails Into History By Finishing Atlantic Crossing (apnews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the impressive-feat dept.

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.

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hard to understand why this would be difficult by arth1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Hard to understand why this would be difficult by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've found a FLAT EARTH DENIER!

    I bet you vaccinate your kids and don't believe in lizard people either.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  3. Description wrong? Not autonomous? by starless · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.