NF-POGO Miniboats Project

Boats:

El Cisne Alto (The Tall Swan)

Schnelle Welle (Fast Wave)

Spiorad na Gaillimhe (Spirit of Galway)

Yemaya

The Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) and the Alfred-Wegener Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI) are partnering with Educational Passages to bring their Miniboat Programme to schools and communities around the world. This project will connect and unite people around ocean science.

The 2022 shipboard outreach initiative during the North-South Atlantic training Transect’ (NoSoAT) – from Germany to South Africa – will include four ‘miniboats’ from schools and oceanographic partner institutions in Ireland, Germany, Spain, and South Africa. The miniboats will be deployed in the Atlantic Ocean, allowing the school students to track the progress of their own vessel, and that of the others involved in the project, and learn about ocean currents, weather, technology, etc.

Three of the miniboats will be deployed by the R/V Polarstern along the Atlantic transect and one will be deployed by the R/V Algoa, along the SAMBA transect (Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment – Oceans & Coasts Research, South Africa).

In the preparatory phase, the schools and partner institutions will prepare their boats and learn about the NoSoAT initiative, a programme endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. They will install sensor packages on their boats, place messages inside for the finder, and coordinate transport for the finished vessels to board the research cruises.

During the ‘live’ phase of the project, in September, all four miniboats will be deployed, and live calls between the schools and the NoSoAT cruise will be held. All the participants will be able to share the stories and track the boats together on this publicly-available webpage.

All four miniboats were deployed between September 10 and October 2 (see image to the right). Follow the Journey with us! We challenge you to check the wind and current forecasts and tell us where YOU think the miniboats will travel to. 

This initiative is funded by The Nippon Foundation and Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) with support from the Alfred-Wegener Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI).

The NF-POGO Miniboats thanks all those involved for their contribution to the journey.