Recent reports in the media have announced that the 2-meter long robot sailboat, SB Met, has become the first unmanned vessel to cross the Atlantic after completing a 1,800-mile (3,000 km) journey from Newfoundland in Canada to Ireland.
The Daily Mail reports that the boat’s two-and-a-half-month journey saw it cross the North Atlantic as part of the Microtransat Challenge – a transatlantic race for autonomous boats.
The SB Met, built by Norwegian company Offshore Sensing AS, is the first vessel to complete the challenge after more than 20 attempts by various teams.
Without diminishing SB Met’s achievement, it may be the first unmanned sailboat, but it is not the first unmanned vessel. Back in 2009, the Rutgers University RU27 Slocum Glider not only sailed unmanned across the Atlantic Ocean but it did so entirely underwater!
Slocum gliders, named after Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handed around the world, use buoyancy and gravity to glide up and down through the oceans, powered only by tiny pumps which move small amounts of water around to adjust the glider’s buoyancy.
SB Met is the first unmanned boat to cross the Atlantic unassisted, and to arrive at its stated waypoint on the other side (there are unmanned, non-navigating sailboats that have crossed to random destinations). Without diminishing the Slocum Glider achievement, it did not cross without assistance, and it finished hundreds of kms from land. Its crossing did not conform to the rules created by either the Microtransat Race or that of Guinness World Records. The record to cross unassisted by fully autonomous (SB Met was remotely controlled) boat still remains open.
First Surface ship
Looking forward to the Vendee Globot Race.
Seriously, what a challenge for salty geeks!