It is a little off topic for this Blog but anyone who knows me well can tell you I have a passion for the environment. It is fair to say that as professional sailors we have a vested interest, nobody wants to charter a yacht in lifeless polluted sea. It amazing how a sighting of a pod of dolphins or even a whale can have a dramatic effect on your tips at the end of the week.
Marine commercial transport is incredibly polluting, not only do those container ships burn huge quantities of fuel but the grade is of much lower quality. It is known as bunker fuel can it contains a lot of sulphur and when burnt releases loads of particulate matter. With rising fuel prices and concerns about green house gases, maybe in the future we will see robotic boats delivering cargo around the world. It would certainly make going up the Suez Canal interesting.
The Roboat is a robotic sail boat of Austrain design, which is able to autonomously navigate towards any given target without human control or intervention. The rudder and sails as well as the tacks and jibes are autonomously controlled by incoming data from sensors, which are analysed using artificial intelligence. The Roboat team won the first international Microtransat event which is the world's leading competition in autonomous sailing.
A project to reseach Whales in the Pacific Ocean in cooperation with the Oregon State University is currently under development. An autonomic sailing boat makes cost-effective surveying of large areas for long periods of time possible. I am sure this ground-breaking research will have many applications in the future. Areas of current consideration are improvements to yachts auto-pilots, carbon neatral transportation of goods and of course good old spying!
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