
The Mayflower Autonomous Ship Project - adamfeldman
https://newsroom.ibm.com/then-and-now
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Animats
Wave Gliders [1] have been doing that for years.

The tiny Wave Gliders are quite useful. They're small, smaller than a
surfboard. They're considered "marine debris" for vessel safety purposes.
Electronics is so small today that they carry compute power, GPS, cameras, and
Iridium for communications, plus other small oceanographic instruments as
desired. They're tough enough to survive hurricanes. The control center has
AIS info and steers them away from vessel traffic. Propulsion is mostly
passive, using wave action to propel the glider forward. They're slow, but
make steady progress.

It's a quiet, useful and profitable technology.

[1] [https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-
glider/overview/](https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/overview/)

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learn_more
I wonder how the Wave Glider deals with fouling of the umbilical from seaweed
and fishing gear?

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bloudermilk
If you like autonomous ships, check out Saildrone

> Saildrone designs and manufactures wind and solar-powered autonomous surface
> vehicles called saildrones, which make cost-effective ocean data collection
> possible at scale. We are building the world's largest high-resolution ocean
> datasets, working with governments and private companies around the globe.

[https://climatescape.org/organizations/saildrone](https://climatescape.org/organizations/saildrone)

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AnotherGoodName
I feel Mary Celeste would have been a better name.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste)

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eat_veggies
Yes! Not only does Mary Celeste have a way cooler name and backstory than the
Mayflower, it also carries fewer weird colonial/imperialist connotations.

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option_greek
Looks like they have found their new 'Watson' for the Ocean. At least this one
probably does something useful. Everything IBM does using buzzwords seems to
be to keep their consultancy business thriving and staying in the news.

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yalogin
Sorry for the tangent, but I am surprised to see a dedicated section to
Blockchain on their site. Its right alongside Cloud, IoT and Security. Wonder
what they do with it.

EDIT: I need to clarify a bit. I clicked on the link yes. However there are
pages of it, wasn't sure if its aspirational or they actually make money off
it

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rsynnott
It was all the rage a few years back; everyone had an aspirational blockchain
project. It being IBM, they’ll probably vaguely keep at it long after it’s
passé.

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silentwanderer
I know this is a dumb thing to complain about, but why is their CGI so bad?

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SrslyJosh
An unfortunate name.

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davedx
Hope it can follow Col Regs.

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jackyinger
For those who aren’t avid boaters:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_fo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_Preventing_Collisions_at_Sea)

Looking at that tiny wing sail, it’s gonna be sloowwww. Maybe that’ll help?

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WJW
20 knots is not all that slow. According to google average container ship
speed is about 24 knots. Even the navy destroyer I used to sail on topped out
at 30 knots using its gas turbines, which were only to be used for "serious
purposes".

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contingencies
Very rough scale with respect to sailing vessels around 30-55 foot length...
multihulls (fast = 20 knots, common = 15 knots, many = 10 knots), monohulls
(fast = 12 knots, common = 8-10 knots, many = 6-8 knots). For an ocean-going
trimaran, their 10 knot speed is not fast. It is quite likely the vessel's
apparently near-fixed "wingsail" represents a very conservatively-rigged
configuration that is biased for stability instead of speed.

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scooble
Thinking about it in the context of the colregs, 10kts is above the hull speed
of a 40ft sailing yacht, and is probably plenty fast enough to sink that yacht
in a collision.

