Lady Lance

Waterford High School (Waterford, CT)

Updates:

1st Voyage

The Lady Lancer is the sister ship to the Lancer, which first traveled to Ireland (and then the UK, and then from Canary Islands to the Bahamas in April 2023).

Students at Waterford High School in Mr. O’Connor’s ECE Marine Science class took on the task of building the boat and preparing a new Student Drifter from GOMLF/NOAANEFSC. They did this back in 2016 (see above) and wanted to replicate the research to learn more about wind and currents in the ocean.

The decoration of the sail and boat was done in partnership with Quaker Hill Elementary School, who helped assemble the drifter in 2016. It is great to see long term connections loop back around to extend the learning opportunities!

On October 20, 2022, a virtual reunion was hosted over Zoom where students from Tor Bridge School in Plymouth got to meet the original students, Kaitlin and Maebh, and connect with new students at Waterford High School:

The project was highlighted by the newspaper, The Day, on November 1, 2022: Waterford High boat set to cross the Atlantic again

By November 8th, the fully assembled boat and drifter were delivered to the dock in Woods Hole, MA where it was boarded on the R/V Neil Armstrong. This was the vessel that launched the pair back in 2016! We’d like to thank the crew, PI Al Pleuddeman, and Chief Scientists John Lund for all their support with the project.

  • November 13, 2022 - Lady Lance Miniboat Set to Sea

    The miniboat deployment was delayed until today because of expected winds from Tropical Storm Nicole. Rather than launching and seeing the boat head back to land, Chief Scientist John Lund decided to wait until Sunday to launch. We appreciate this adjustment to the work schedule!

    On Sunday evening, an email was received that the miniboat was launched at 16:02 local time.

    To learn more: OOI Pioneer 19: Final Recovery of Coastal Pioneer Array  and Students’ Mini-Boat Launched from R/V Neil Armstrong

    To follow along with the class’s blog, visit this webpage.

     

  • Blog Updates and Tracking by the Students

    November 20, 2022 Blog Update

    December 10, 2022 Update

    Jim Manning, recently retired Oceanographer at NOAA NEFSC,  produced the following animation with the Lady Lance miniboat and surface drifter to show how the Lady Lance was caught in a warm core ring. Thanks to Jim for producing this animation, and John Wilkin who produces the model output for the SST.

    December 13, 2022 – Students featured on local news

    WFSB shared a story on the local news about the project, GREAT KIDS: Marine Biology students set sail with legacy boat kit project.

    Blog Updates 

    They also updated the blog with this post.

    Blog was updated with track analysis video here on January 8.

    From the blog, Week 8 update:

    “As of 1/12/23, Lady Lance is in around 66 degree water and going around 0.66 knots. While the air temperature is around 55 degrees. Earlier in the week, the water temperature was around 66 degrees and the air was around 61 degrees. The boat was also going around 1 knot. Showing the boat has slowed down and it’s getting colder, while the water temperature is staying the same. Lady Lance is currently stuck in what seems to be a small gyre, in a northwestern direction.”

    From the blog, Week 14 update:

    “Lady lance is heading in the southwest direction. With the most likely scenario that the sale has broken off it is being directed mostly by the currents. Lady Lance is in the gulf stream and will most likely continue in this path. This will keep pushing Lady Lance across the Atlantic. The final path is not known because the gulf stream stops in the middle of the ocean.”

  • May 12, 2023 - Recovered in the Azores

    After almost exactly 6 months, the Lady Lance found her way approaching the island of Graciosa in the Azores. Having just had another miniboat land there a few months back (Teal Turtle), we had contacts in the area that we reached out to!

    Special thanks to Carla, César at the Port of Praia, and all at Calypso Azores (again!) for going out to sea and recovering the miniboat before it landed on the rocks.

    Paulo at Calypso Azores reported that, “We have been alerted this morning that a mini boat was drifting very close to Praia da Graciosa. We went out in one of our boats to recover Lady Lance before she hit the rocks. This time the recovery has been much easier than Teal Turtle:)  The mast and sail are missing but the hull is ok.”

    And shared some more pictures with us:

    Next, we will connect classrooms!

Ocean Science Data from Onboard Sensor System

  • Click here to access sensor data

    This boat has two GPS systems onboard. The location reports from both units will show on the map at the top of this page once it is deployed.

    Here below is where you can see the data reporting from the second GPS which is connected to a custom 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 show the last 7 days of data and may include invalid points and data. If you are interested in more data, contact us.