Is anyone crossing the Atlantic heading west? Can anyone rescue ADA

[uncle stinkybob]

Originally Posted by Cadence

I guess I did! About the short sightedness of those that did about a drop in a bucket of water or should I say ****.

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

There is good reason to be upset about a saling drone launched willy nilly without consideration to navigational dangers to others.

How on earth does one come to this grossly exaggerated conclusion. They are trying to recover it.:

You think a large gas guzzling Catamaran does not pollute?
Does not put navigators more at risk than a dozen drones?
Is not a very self indulgent enterprise?
Risks killing more needy people by not donating its running costs to the poor?
I suggest their fun is a lot more considerate than your proposed fun.

Our mere existence has negative impact on a pristine unpolluted world but jealousy and judgmentalism is no reason to stop having fun and enjoying others having fun. (Not saying we shouldn't consider others and the environment.)

[uncle stinkybob]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

There is good reason to be upset about a saling drone launched willy nilly without consideration to navigational dangers to others. Society has long held that your freedom ends when it affects the freedom of others. In this case your right to launch unmanned floating vessels ends when it infringes on the right of others to navigate safely.

But all is forgiven, even justified, because it was done in the name of science. So much bad is done in the name of science. I was watching a documentary where a group of marine biologists thought it was OK to chisel, hack into and pull off living coral off a coral outcrop off of South Eastern PNG. I would have perhaps been ok with one but so many floral living coral organisms in the one place. I don't think so. But it was excusable and OK because they were scientists.

Like these drone students. Let's excuse them because they were doing 'science"

What I wrote earlier in this thread was even a greater concern for the whole floating drone industry and the dangers it may/will represent to cruisers. Not that I think it's ok but I would much rather hit a Coke bottle in the Atlantic then be rimmed by a 50 knot an hour drone boat.

Upon writing my concern about where this could all lead, the very next day stories started to appear in Western media about the fleets of drone boats being launched of all shapes and even big ship sizes.

To defend one wrong by pointing to other wrongs is a typical illogical argument used by sophists.

Well said!

[jackdale]

ADA's Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/ubcsailbot/...WSFEED&fref=nf

UBC SailBot
September 6 at 4:52pm ·
Yesterday morning our hearts jumped at the sight of new notifications. With direct sunlight hitting Ada's solar panels, she regained life.
By analysing data being reported, we have confirmed that Ada lost power during a storm on August 30th, 2016, and since then, has sustained further damage.
During the power failure, Ada endured wind speeds of 40+ knots, heeling her past 90 degrees and damaging her rig.
Unfortunately, her GNSS receivers and wind sensors are no longer operational. Despite the fact that Ada is unaware of her location, and thus defaulting to a location near Newfoundland, we are able to roughly determine her position from the Iridium satellite network.
Her last reported location is 43.14152, -36.09249, roughly 500 km south-east from her last transmitted location prior to the power failure. The tracking website (https://track.ubctransat.com) will continue to be updated with her latest location, but at a slower rate. At this time, we hope to retrieve Ada to do a full inspection of her systems, enabling us to determine how to avoid similar issues with future boats.
We are currently looking for opportunities of close encounters with the boat to help us retrieve it. If anyone is able to offer further services or re-route a vessel, it would be most appreciated and we would forever be grateful!

[coastalexplorer]

Amazing news from the university of British Columbia!
From their web site I read>.....An exciting update from Ada as she surpasses 2500 km of total travel!
We're looking at opportunities to recover her, and thankfully she is heading towards the Azores! Now only 250 km from the islands, please contact us if you might be able to help!

that is approximately only 156 miles. Track her at: https://track.ubctransat.com/

Do we have anyone sailing near by? they would like a photographic damage report.

[JPA Cate]

Hi, there, coastal explorer,

Glad they're still getting location reports. I think a photographic damage report is more easily do-able out in the open ocean than an actual rescue. However, do you know if there's a painter on it? (a line to tow it with) Or, even a shackle so that if someone snagged it, it could be secured?

If somebody feels like rescuing it, and it could be sort of a lark to do it, if you could provide them with pictures in detail of the bow of the boat, that might help. Also, if the mast is still up, could she be towed safely by that? The more information you can hand a potential rescuer, the more likely such a rescue will be. Maybe some Portuguese university students might like to help???? A lot can happen with kids, energy, and a little money.

Good luck with it, and boy do I hope they go with High Visibility colored sails and LED nav lights next time.

Ann

[Sailbotter]

Hello Cruiser Forum community!

Unlike Coastal Explorer who had generously tried to help the Sailbot project by posting, here, I am actually directly involved with this transatlantic autonomous sailboat project. I am a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia, and was the mechanical lead throughout most of the design and construction of Ada.

First of all, I'm very sorry to see that our project has caused so much concern to many members here. I would like to reassure you, if I can, that we did not spend three years on this project without considering the risk that Ada would pose to others on the ocean. We learned to assess risk in terms of the probability of an event occurring, and the potential harm that would arise if that event did occur. We took pains to both minimize the risk of Ada hitting another boat, and the risk of damage to that boat if she did. If you're interested in the measures we took, please read on below.

After taking those measures, our judgement was that the level of risk posed to others was low enough that launching Ada was ethically acceptable. The risk is not, of course, zero. And I understand that different people have different perceptions of risk. I like to do things like go skiing, take my sailing dinghy out amongst other sailboats, and drive my car to work. I don't really need to do any of those things, and with all of them, there is a risk that I will hurt someone. But I judge the risk of harm to be low enough that I indulge in those activities without losing sleep at night.

There is an important ethical debate about autonomous vehicles playing out in society now. I agree that the concerns are not trivial, and that there are many valid viewpoints. People who are concerned certainly should participate in that debate.

As a newcomer here, I am going to restrict my participation in that to what I've said above. I will, however, bring this thread to the attention of current members of the Sailbot team so that they can take the concerns expressed into their consideration.

What I would like to do is clear up some misinformation and provide some information that will assist anyone who is interested in helping Ada. I also hope it can allay some of the concerns of those worried about hitting, or being hit by Ada. I'm going to split this into several posts, as I'm afraid it may be a bit lengthy.

[Sailbotter]

First of all, some particulars of Ada:
LOA 5.5 m
Displacement 250 kg
See the attached drawing for more.

[Sailbotter]

Here is a picture of Ada as she looked when launched:

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by Sailbotter

First of all, some particulars of Ada:
LOA 5.5 m
Displacement 250 kg
See the attached drawing for more.

Haha. Only 250kg and some sailors are scared of it.

Whales can weigh up to 70 tonnes - 280 times more.

[Sailbotter]

In the above photo, you can just see Ada's navigation light on the stern between the wind sensors. That's a flashing white LED. We were able to confirm by trying it that it was visible from at least 1 nautical mile at night. I'm afraid we didn't go any farther away than that. We didn't have room in the energy budget for green and red running lights.

As you can see, Ada is white overall with a black bow, and red highlights on her topsides. Her tripod is red, her sail is white with yellow highlights. In terms of a high visibility sail, we thought the white with yellow was reasonable. Unfortunately, the sailmaker who re-enforced the sail for us didn't have bright yellow or orange fabric to offer us.

The black bow is designed to absorb energy in the event of an impact. It's mainly composed of a material called Impaxx - a type of foam designed to absorb impact in collisions and commonly used, for example, in race cars. We engineered the bow to absorb over it's crush depth, the amount of energy that would be associated with a 250 kg Ada hitting a stationary object at 7 m/s (about 14 knots).

You can see the 4 foot AIS antenna on top of the tripod. You can also see the housing for the two infrared cameras that Ada was designed to use for obstacle avoidance. The two discs floating visible just forward of the transom and abaft the mast step are Ada's GPS antennas. She transmits her position by satellite every 20 minutes. You can see her position at:

https://track.ubctransat.com/tracking

Unfortunately, many of her systems are no longer working and as she is unable to steer, Ada could not now avoid anything. On the bright side, for those concerned, Ada has been traveling at only about 2 knots for the last few days. We are fairly sure Ada has lost at least most of her rig. She was caught in at least one 40 knot gale in her rudderless condition.

Ada is constructed in the cold-moulded fashion with a 6 mm softwood core and about 0.5 mm of carbon fibre on either side of that. The total is about 1/4" thick. She has a longitudinal and many transverse bulkheads to subdivide her into 18 sealed compartments. We think this construction is relatively strong at doing what it was designed to, but probably not very resistant to impact with a hard object like the bow of an oceangoing yacht.

[hemetone]

Originally Posted by DeepCut

So if my boat, currently crossing the Atlantic, hits this object, Photos taken of object and boat limps into port:
Will University pay? Would I have a case against them?

Ha ha, if your boat has to "limp" from hitting a surf boat then you have a lot bigger concerns!

[young at hart]

Hello!
Thank you for posting the info. Extremely interesting project, on behalf of the CF community I would like to apologize for some of the dimwitted, nasty, simple-minded comments that some posted. You ever see an old man yell at a young child whilst shaking his fist? "You damn kids get off my lawn!" Ha, ha yep they are online now. (Rummy's and all sorts of tin foil hat wearing individuals) Regardless, best of luck with the project...it's innovative individuals like yourself who truly change the world, one experiment at a time. Best wishes

[Sailbotter]

I tried to post the following once already, but it was not allowed until "reviewed by a moderator". Maybe because I added a link to the ubctransat tracking page. I'll try again now without the link (google ubctransat tracking if you'd like) - I'd like to post this information close to the images above... I apologize if it ends up posted twice.

Somehow people seem to have gotten the idea that Ada has no light. In the above photo, you can just see Ada's navigation light on the stern between the wind sensors. That's a flashing white LED. We were able to confirm by trying it that it was visible from at least 1 nautical mile at night. I'm afraid we didn't go any farther away than that. We didn't have room in the energy budget for green and red running lights.

As you can see, Ada is white overall with a black bow, and red highlights on her topsides. Her tripod is red, her sail is white with yellow highlights. In terms of a high visibility sail, we thought the white with yellow was reasonable. Unfortunately, the sailmaker who re-enforced the sail for us didn't have bright yellow or orange fabric to offer us.

The black bow is designed to absorb energy in the event of an impact. It's mainly composed of a material called Impaxx - a type of foam designed to absorb impact energy in collisions and commonly used, for example, in race cars. We engineered the bow to absorb over it's crush depth, the amount of energy that would be associated with a 250 kg Ada hitting a stationary object at 7 m/s (about 14 knots).

You can see the 4 foot AIS antenna on top of the tripod. You can also see the housing for the two infrared cameras that Ada was designed to use for obstacle avoidance. The two discs visible just forward of the transom and abaft the mast step are Ada's GPS antennas. She transmits her position by satellite every 20 minutes. You can see her position on the ubctransat tracking page.

Unfortunately, many of her systems are no longer working and as she is unable to steer, Ada could not now avoid anything. Other than the longitude and latitude, much of the information you see on the tracking page now is incorrect. Those are just default values programmed into Ada so that she would be able to function to some degree without some of her sensors. She seems to have lost the use of almost all of her sensors now. On the bright side, for those concerned, Ada has been traveling at only about 2 knots for the last few days. We are fairly sure she has lost most or all of her rig. She was caught in at least one 40 knot gale in her rudderless condition.

Ada is constructed in the cold-moulded fashion with a 6 mm softwood core and about 0.5 mm of carbon fibre on either side of that. The total is about 1/4" thick. She has one longitudinal and many transverse bulkheads to subdivide her into 18 sealed compartments. We think this construction is relatively strong at doing what it was designed to, but probably not very resistant to impact with a hard object like the bow of an oceangoing yacht.

[adoxograph]

Originally Posted by DeepCut

So if my boat, currently crossing the Atlantic, hits this object, Photos taken of object and boat limps into port:
Will University pay? Would I have a case against them?

Seriously?