Daniel

1st Voyage

• Fall 2016

  

  This boat, built by Jacqui Degan’s Marine Tech students at CFCC, was launched off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina at the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester. Unlike its sister ship, Lester Bell, that was deployed a few weeks later, Daniel was immediately entrained in the Gulf Stream and in less than a year approached the Azorean Islands.  Several of Educational Passages’s miniboat enthusiasts were put on alert as it approached.
  

  News of Daniel is also posted on the CFCC Facebook page.

• October 15, 2017

  On the evening of 15 Oct 2017, we realized Daniel was apparently aground on the island of Flores.  Claudia Viegas, one of our Azorean colleagues immediately responded and the search was on a few miles northeast of the village of Cedros.  We also notified Deolinda Estêvão, the headmistress of EBS Mouzinho da Silveira,  a primary and secondary school, located on the nearby island of Corvo where one of our drifters had come ashore earlier in this same year.

• October 16, 2017

  

  Since the boat was apparently at the base of a cliff and could only be accessed by water, the Navy was contacted and asked to help.  In any case, later that evening, we saw her reporting from the larger village of Santa Cruz.  The next day we heard from Raquel Costa that, thanks to Luis Sebastio and Carlos Toste, she was indeed recovered!

  She’ll soon be brought to the school on Flores Island (Ilha das Flores) where she landed.

• March 25, 2026 Update!

  On March 25th, 2026 a miniboat named Song of the Sea was rescued off the island of Flores in the Azores. How is this news relevant to Daniel you may ask…read the last update in the accordion above!

  With all the excitement of Song of the Sea’s recovery, educators at Escola Básica Integrada das Flores were reminded of Daniel’s recovery 9 years ago and decided to bring him out of storage for students to see the very next day on March 26th. With both miniboats now together, students were able to compare the more recent miniboat design to its older version and open both cargo holds.
  Below is Daniel (pictured upright on left and in middle images), with nothing found in the cargo hold.
  
  Song of the Sea on the other hand had plenty of memorabilia in her cargo hold for students to discover:
  
  To make things even more exciting this school also received a miniboat in 2023 from New Hampshire, Wildcat Wave.

  Three miniboats all at one school, now making a big splash in the community!