Puffin updates

Brave Puffin’s last communication was on September 26th, almost a month ago. Well, this must be it! By now there is no hope of Puffin sending a signal again, but there is hope of the boat being washed ashore and found - one day. Hard to speculate on the reasons for failure until then. Puffin lived on for 83 days, traveled 1344 miles / 2163 km… …and survived a few storms, including one near direct hit by a hurricane, just a few days before the last transmission: [Read More]

Brave Puffin is adrift. The boat is 700 km (435 mi) from the launch point - as the crow flies. Path wise, Puffin traveled 880 miles in two months, while zig zagging on one motor. It appears the boat is now just drifting, i.e. the left motor is out too. Yet, Brave Puffin is communicating - which means the main enclosure has no leaks, and the solar panel + battery are OK. [Read More]

Puffin is alive! It’s been three weeks, and we still hear from the boat several times a day. This means there are no leaks and the power system is OK. Brave Puffin covered 511 km (318 miles) in total, however, it is off course: It is now almost certain that boat’s right motor has a problem. Which means with only the motor on the left side and no rudder, it is going at half the speed, but most importantly it can go in the desired direction only when there is a favorable wind from the right side. [Read More]

Good news:

The boat is more or less on course despite the shifting winds. It covered 200 km in one week, more than half of the first big leg towards the waypoint south of Nova Scotia. It continues to send satellite tracking updates a few times a day, which means there are no leaks and the battery + solar panel are doing OK.

Bad news:

[Read More]

And, Brave Puffin is on its way, attempting to finish The Microtransat Challengee 2020! With lots of good wishes…

[Read More]

Puffin went onto a 200 mile round-trip test mission that was launched on September 21, 2019. The starting point was Castle Rock park in Marblehead, MA (Boston’s north shore). Puffin’s destination was a waypoint about 160 km east, in the middle of Gulf of Maine. We chose to launch Puffin at night to minize the chance of collision in the coastal waters. The boat performed well for about a day, staying on course and sending its location via GPS satellite tracker. [Read More]