CT Teen Creates Unmanned Sailboat that Reaches Ireland

WATERFORD, CT — Kaitlyn Dow, a student at Waterford High School, built a 5-foot mini-sailboat (the Lancer) that has successfully crossed the Atlantic.

This boat was prepared by Kaitlyn and other students of Mike O'Connor's UCONN ECE Marine Science Class at Waterford High School (WHS) in coordination with Mrs. Shoemaker's 4th grade students at Quaker Hill Elementary School. The project was funded by grants from CT Sea Grant and the Captain Planet Foundation

This was part of Kaitlyn's year-long research project. As part of the project, she and the 4th graders, built a simple surface drifter that was launched at the same time as her boat.

Her goal was to study how the two objects would move differently. The goal was to have the boat ride the wind and the drifter would ride the currents.

The boat and drifter were both equipped with GPS transmitters. Kaitlyn worked with the 4th graders and taught them about water movement in the ocean. She even brought them on a Project Oceanology trip to test the drifter and release coconuts with messages inside.

Some of these coconuts were later recovered by random beachcombers. One of these beachcombers had released messages in bottles as a child and her mother had written a children's book about it. She provided Kaitlyn a copy which Kaitlyn read to the 4th graders. Kaitlyn also released 2 GPS equiped bucket drifters that were part of Dr. Whitney's research on near shore water movement

The boat was filled with gifts from Waterford and UCONN. These included WHS clothing, a UCONN husky stuffed animal, a stuffed octopus and a thumb drive of stories from Mrs. Shoemaker's students. There were also marine science books and pamphlets from CT Sea Grant.

This is a special boat with three world-class marine science universities, a new research vessel, and a NOAA drifter involved. The boat and drifter were delivered to the RV Neil Armstrong in Woods Hole on 30 April 2016.

The Armstrong is UNOLS's newest research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The deployments, one of the first missions to be conducted by this multi-million dollar vessel, were made on the afternoon of 7 May 2016, near the shelf edge south of Martha's Vineyard.

One of the systems that has become integral for ocean research is "telepresence" - where researchers, classrooms and the general public can connect to the ship in real time via the internet. This cruise was a the test run for that telepresence for the Armstrong.

The land base of operations for those cruises is URI's Inner Space Center.

Some of the people involved in setting up this deployment are:

• Ken Kostel (kkostel@whoi.edu), WHOI science writer
• Ivar Babb, the director of NURTEC at UCONN Avery Point, arranged the deployment.
• Tim Shank, the chief scientist from WHOI on the deployment cruise.
• James Manning, the NOAA/NEFSC Drifter Program director and author of this account
• Dick Baldwin, the director of Education Passages that made the boat kit
• Kelly Barnes is the tech coordinator at WHS and Martha Shoemaker is the 4th grade teacher involved.

The boat is reporting 3 times per day at approximately 0Z, 0800Z, and 1600Z. The drifter is reported every two hours. The tracks can be seen here.
Before getting underway, the Lancer was already getting local press here.
Kaitlyn's twitter about the project is @DrifterWhs.

Recent Timeline
On September 6, 2016, with Lancer having crossed the ocean in a little more than four months and approaching the Emerald Isle, Kaitlyn sent an email to the Irish Minister of Education, Angela Mahase, The head of the Irish Coast Guard and many others to note the Lancer's approach to their shores. She wrote "A miniature unmanned sailboat is preparing to invade the West Coast of Ireland. Not to worry, this is a friendly invasion.

It is either just off the coastline or might have even made landfall by the time you receive this. We are hoping you or anyone else could recover our boat before it gets damaged in the surf. This is part of a hands-on learning program we are doing at Waterford High School. We are learning about oceanography, earth science, geography, navigation, and hope to have a meaningful international relations experience as well.

If you click on this link http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_whs_2016_1.html you will see a map indicating where our boats are. Our boat is the Lancer. Click over the boat location to find the longitude/latitude. We are hoping students could meet her as she comes ashore or maybe your local fishermen can pick her up before she comes ashore. You’ll find information about us in the watertight compartment and how you can email us for more information. Please take our boat to a nearby school so your students can learn as well.

It might be neat if the Lancer somehow made its way to Waterford, Ireland. Let’s work together, fix her up as needed and get her back to sea to continue her voyage. We’d love to see pictures and have a chance to Skype with you. Thank you, Kaitlyn Dow and Michael O’Connor, Science Teacher, Waterford High School "

Later that same day, Kaitlyn also emailed the mayor of Waterford, Ireland in attempt to get him interested.
The next morning, on September 7, 2016, we heard from Edna Nolan, the managing director of the Coastways Surveys in Ireland telling us they already had their eye out for the approaching boats and they happen to be working on the west coast this particular week! The Minister of Education's secretary, Derek Newcombe, acknowledged the email.

On September 8th, 2016, Mr. O'Connor sent a challenge to all the Waterford Ct schools in his district to predict where and when Lancer would land. Prizes will be awarded!

On September 12, 2016, the lancer approached within 75 miles of the Irish coast. Emails, Facebook messages, and Tweets went out to any contacts that could be found in the area of Galway Bay. The Irish Coast Guard , the American Ambassador to Ireland and all the pubs and schools in the region were notified.

On September 17th 2016, after a week or two of stalling offshore as if to build the suspense, the Lancer finally made her approach towards Galway. With the sun rising, she was a few kilometers off a rather sparsely-populated island just west of Connemara. Thanks to some superb efforts by Kaitlyn to alert the natives, another series of emails ensued.

We heard from Cormaca Macdonncha, for example, who reported "We are on watch on Galway Bay ... good luck." We heard from Capt Alex Blackwell, the master mariner with White Sea Horse publishing company, who reported "How very exciting! I have passed it on to several friends in Galway area to forward to Inis Mor. Hopefully we will find your boat. If I hear anything, I will surely let you know. I will be in Galway myself on Sunday. Congratulations on a successful Atlantic crossing - we have done so on a slightly larger sailboat a few times and it can be quite harrowing at this time of year." Kailyn reported:"I contacted a pub in Galway through Facebook and they posted it on their page and in 20 minutes 5 people have shared it and over 20 likes." Aron Islands Air in the Aron Islands reported "I've told our pilots to keep an eye out. If they spot anything i will let you know." Breandán Ó Conghaile responded with "I'll spread the word. Sounds like an amazing project, good luck with it."

Evy Copejans, a marine-educator colleague from Belgium, reached out to the National University of Ireland in Galway with: "If you have any contacts of the local coast guard/(research) vessel who can pick up a miniature sailing boat that crossed the Atlantic, please contact the school below. Many thanks for helping us retrieve this unique piece of education material!" . Luis Sebastião, from Portugal's Institute for Systems and Robotics, sent out an similar email to nearly a hundred contacts.

So, with nearly everyone on the west coast of Ireland having been alerted, we awaited to hear of little Lancer's fate. At 12:02 p.m. , it was reported to Kaitlyn's twitter account that Lancer has been recovered!! See photo below. See more photos, videos, and a transcript of the recovery exchanges here.

Later in the day, after multiple jubilant email exchanges across the Atlantic, we heard again from Edna Nolan with "Hello Folks. Great to hear she has landed on the Coral Strand. We have surveyors working in this part of Galway next week, they could pick her up and bring her to Waterford Institute of Technology https://www.wit.ie/ near our office and I'll speak to a lecturer colleague about relaunch etc." And so the Lancer story may continue, from one Waterford to another but, like a little ship on the high seas, you just don't know what will happen.

The next morning, September 18th, 2016, we got the following letter:

Hello Michael! We are delighted and very excited that we recovered the boat. The girl who recovered the boat is my daughter Méabh Ní Ghionnáin, who is 8 years old. She can't wait to return to school tomorrow morning (with boat in tow!) and tell her story and what a story.

She is already booked for an interview with RTE Raidió na Gaeltachta our national Irish Language Radio Station tomorrow at approx 09.40 GMT. The Lancer sailed into Droim, Leitir Móir which is in Conamara, County Galway. A Gaeltacht region where our native tongue is Irish.

We first heard of the Lancer's voyage from my sister Clíona, whom Kaitlyn contacted via FB messenger last Friday. Using the drifter project link online we checked out Lancer's location Friday night but it was still southwest of the Aran Islands. We couldn't believe it today when the gps tracker showed the sailboat literally in front of a little island that we gaze at everyday from our living room window! Alas we couldn't see the boat but we discussed possible locations along the local shore that it may have sailed to.

Méabh and her Dad Stiofán, walked down to a rocky shoreline east of that little island (Oileán Anamna) and there she was - a little weather beaten, having sailed through three thousand miles of storms and high seas! Méabh was beside herself opening the boat to see what surprises from across the wild Atlantic were hidden below!

Wow, a teddy, an octopus, pencils, a t-shirt, UCONN memorabilia and the best thing a memory stick laden with treasure from the elementary students. We imagine this will be such a great project for Méabh's class, replying to Kaitlyn and the other the students but also in re launching the Lancer and preparing her for the next leg of her exploration.

We will discuss it with the her school first but I am sure they will be very interested in being involved in such an exciting project. Our family have a huge connection with the sea and with the USA! We have close family in Massachusetts and relatives in other states. Méabh's Dad is a fisherman. Her grandfather used to fish and her great grandfather and great great grandfather were fishermen too! Her grandfather and uncles own and sail Galway Hookers - traditional wooden work boats that have survived on the Galway coast. These can be seen on my twitter account @nedstaf Yes we are ok with you using the images and I will forward more. Great to hear from you and feel free to ask us any further questions. All the best, Neasa Ní Chualáin Méabh's Mother.

Hopefully Meabh's class will fix up the Lancer, fill her with Irish gifts and messages and send her on the next leg of her journey.

Update - Meabh and her family traveled to Belfast this week to present to the European Educators Convention. Plans are in the works to raise funds to fix up the boat, and get Kaitlyn and Meabh together. A gofund me site has been created to raise those funds.

https://www.gofundme.com/lancer