Hollow Vessel

Updates:

Voyage 1

  • About Us

    Sail Nauticus Academy’s team is comprised of 5th Grade students from 4 different schools throughout our community: Lake Taylor School, Compass Academy at Ruffner, Crossroads School, and Southside STEM Academy at Campostella. Our miniboat project was accomplished across 4 days total, throughout the 2025/2026 school year. This collaborative project has allowed students to grasp working together, without some groups of students ever meeting one another, for the same shared miniboat! Thank you to Norfolk Public Schools for making this opportunity possible.

    We named our miniboat Hollow Vessel because we noticed that the boat was hollow inside, from it being separated initially by deck and hull, in order for it to be able to float. We also really vibed with the name due to the eerie aftermath of the previous year boat’s story, the Forever Sea.

    Our hope is for Hollow Vessel to teach us the various trades and skills required to work in the maritime industry in the future.

    We hope our miniboat lands in the Caribbean islands or Jamaica!

  • May 11, 2026 - Launched by Carnival Cruise

    After a successful celebration at Sail Nauticus, the Hollow Vessel was taken aboard a Carnival Cruise ship for launch where final preparations were made by the crew.

    On May 11, Captain Contarino reported in that the miniboat was successfully launched!


    We thank Carnival Cruise for another successful deployment and can’t wait to track where the miniboat will go.

    Data from the Sensor Pack:

    The location reports will show on the map at the top of this page here (which updates hourly with new positions if available). Here below is where you can see the data reporting from the sensor package. In addition to reporting location with a secondary GPS tracker, this system is also collecting air temperature, water temperature, and orientation of the boat. Please note that the map below will only the last 7 days of data and may include invalid points and data. If you are interested in looking at the data in a different format from the whole voyage, contact us.


    Her onboard camera has been catching all the actions of her first day at sea:

    Stay tuned for more updates!