ADA’S STORY
Ada and the Team (2016)
Background of Ada
From 2009 to 2014 UBC Sailbot used to compete in the International Robotics Sailing Regatta (IRSR). Over that time period, the team won first place from 2012-2014, even obtaining perfect scores for the last two years. As a team we had demonstrated that we were ready to move on to a bigger challenge. We were inspired by the Trans-Atlantic challenge to build a vessel to fully autonomously cross the Atlantic Ocean, from which the idea of Ada was born.
We chose to name our boat after Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician who first recognized the potential of computers for running algorithms, and is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. The project was started in 2013 and was completed for system validation at the end of 2015. Taking a trip from Vancouver, BC to St. John’s, NL, Ada was finally launched on August 24, 2016 to take on the challenge of crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Newfoundland, Canada to Ireland in three weeks.
Full Tracking History of Ada’s Journey
Journey of Ada
In the first 3 days, Ada traveled approximately one-third of its journey (around 800km) of autonomous sailing when a severe weather storm developed south of her location. Winds in excess of 40 knots hit her hard and she was last reported travelling at a speed of 12 knots!
Following this weather storm, a rudder failure had occurred, and Ada was at the mercy of prevailing winds and currents. By November 2016, Ada had drifted out to a location near the Azore Islands where TeeKay Shipping made an attempt to spot and rescue Ada for analysis. Unfortunately, due to poor weather and substantial uncertainty around Ada’s position, the rescue attempt was unsuccessful. Shortly afterwards, on November 14, 2016, Ada stopped communicating and for a solid year, we thought that she was forever lost at sea.
A year later, to our delight and surprise, we got a call from the Research Vessel Neil Armstrong on December 16, 2017, informing us that Ada has been spotted off the coast of Florida. They graciously picked up Ada and shipped her back to UBC, where we performed investigations into what had failed and where improvements could be made for our upcoming project Raye.
Recovery of Ada onboard RV Neil Armstrong
(December 1, 2017)
Lessons from Ada
By mid-September 2016, UBC Sailbot as a team had decided to go back to the drawing board and continue the endeavour of building ocean-going autonomous vessels, not giving up despite the loss of Ada. With the wealth of experience gained in the testing and validating of Ada, we began a new project named Raye which would be set to sail along a Vic-Maui Yacht Race route. After the recovery of Ada, we became more knowledgeable and motivated to push on with Raye, ready to challenge an ocean closer to home, the Pacific Ocean.
Read more about the technical analysis and lessons learned from Ada’s recovery in our newsletter.