かえる GO GO!! (KAERU GO GO!!)

Warrenton Grade School (Warrenton, OR USA) & Okuki Elementary School (Hachinohe, Aomori JAPAN) | Columbia River Maritime Museum

Updates:

1st Voyage

S/V KAERU was built by Mrs. Lent’s 7th grade class. Her students choose to paint an indigenous style frog on the bottom of the hull, as the word Kaeru (frog in Japanese) sounds very similar to the word for “safe returns.” The students at Okuki Elementary School liked the theme so much they decided to name the miniboat S/V KAERU GO GO!!

  • November 2019 - Final preparations in Japan



  • November 28, 2019 - Launch Day

    The Columbia River Maritime Museum Miniboat Program hosted LIVE videos on Facebook for the launching of the 2019 Japanese Fleet of Miniboats from 20km off the coast of Hachinohe, Japan on Thanksgiving Day. Check out the event details here.

    Arrival at the docks:

    Student handoff to the boat:

    Heading out to launch site:

  • February 2020 Update

    On February 13, 2020, the CRMM Miniboat Program posted the following update, “It’s with a heavy heart that we must report S/V Kanehama Maru III and S/V Kaeru Go Go!! are both feared capsized. They battled a fierce storm with waves over 27 feet tall and sustained winds of 40 knots. Let’s hope the next storm flips them right-side up”

    June 8, 2020

    After 134 days of silence, the Kaeru Go Go reported her position about 500 nm from the last. Was the boat upside down?

The program was developed by the Columbia River Maritime Museum in partnership with the Consular Office of Japan in Portland, and Educational Passages and is supported by Pacific Power, the U.S. Coast Guard, Columbia River Bar Pilots and many others.

The Columbia River Maritime Museum’s Miniboat Program provides a global, multidisciplinary STEAM learning experience for 5th – 7th grade students in the Pacific Northwest and Japan by empowering them to cooperatively design, build, launch, and track seaworthy, GPS-equipped boats on a journey across the Pacific Ocean.

Since the CRMM program start in 2017, more than 1,200 students on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have been involved in the launch of 24 miniboats (traveling a total of 53,469 nautical miles and counting). These boats are tracked daily, and students are still building on the skills they honed to launch them.