Dalhousie's robotic sailboat meets uncertain fate in transatlantic race

A tiny robotic sailboat's lonely journey across the Atlantic Ocean has just become a bit lonelier.

The SeaLeon, an autonomous 1.8-metre sailboat built by students and faculty at Dalhousie University's engineering department, was launched off Cape Breton Island on July 30 as part of an international transatlantic race called the MicrotransatChallenge.

Although its creators back in Halifax have notbeen allowed to send it commands since the start of its trip, the boat had beensending regular updates on its location.

"We don't know exactly what happened," said Jean-Francois Bousquet, anassociate engineering professor at Dalwho has been leading the project. "At this point, I'm no longer hoping that we're going to complete the challenge of the Microtransat."

Bousquet said he doesn't believe the SeaLeonhas sunk because it has a robust design and good buoyancy.

But if it doesn't transmit its location for 10 consecutive days, it will be disqualified from the race.

Bousquetsaid for most of the vessel's journey, it was transmitting data every six hours or so. But he noticed that when itencountered strong winds such as some up to 40 knots it would inexplicably start transmitting its location every few minutes, draining the battery.

"We knew it was just a question of time before we would have no more power, no more energy in our batteries," he said.

Convoluted route

All was going swimmingly for the first couple thousand kilometres.

"The boat was doing extremely welland everybody on the team was very proud of themselves," Bousquet said.

The boat has aGPSsensor, compass and wind vane that point it toward the finish line, although the crew on land cannot control it remotely.

But for some reason, around the end of August, theSeaLeonstarted heading north instead of east.

"That was very frustrating when it was startingto go north,"Bousquetsaid."I couldn't explain that one."

By the time it continued its eastward trip, it had travelled an extra 1,000 kilometres. But shortly after regaining its sense of direction, theSeaLeonstarted going in circles.

The boat travelled 3,726 kilometres before it lost communication. If it had travelled a straight path rather than its zigzaggy, loop-the-loop route, it likely would have been close to the finish line off the coast of France by now.

At this point, if it's still afloat, the boat is purely at the behest of the wind.

Bousquet said his ambition now is to somehow recover the vessel.

"My hope would be somebody picks it up, somebody finds it," he said."At least we could diagnose it. We could see what went wrong."

Another boat made history in late August by becoming the first to finish the race in the competition's nine-year history, although that vessel was competing in a different category than the SeaLeon.

While Bousquetdid lose sleep over the boat's progressin the early days, he is now resolved about its fate.

"At some point you have to move on," he said.

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