Is This The World’s Largest Autonomous Survey Vessel

This high-tech boat doesn’t need a captain… or a crew for that matter.

Transcript

00:00This is Saildrone Surveyor and while the 72-foot long boat seems large enough for a small crew,

00:08it doesn't have one.

00:09That's because this solar and wind-powered vessel is completely autonomous and it's currently

00:14undergoing trials in the bay outside of San Francisco before embarking on an ultra-long

00:18haul mission on its own, one that may last a year.

00:21So what do these autonomous vessels do?

00:23Here's Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins.

00:25We measure air-sea interaction, we measure oceanography with the surface variables, and

00:30that's applicable for science, for weather, for fisheries, importantly for MDA, maritime

00:35domain awareness, seeing what's above and below the surface, basically your eyes and

00:40ears in the ocean where there aren't people.

00:41It turns out we actually don't know much about the bottom of the ocean.

00:44In fact, only about 20% of our ocean's floors have been mapped.

00:48So these vessels can do anything from help in navigating seabeds to tracking pollution,

00:52fishing migrations, even tsunami wave patterns.

00:55And this vessel is equipped with sonar capable of mapping to a depth of nearly 23,000 feet.

00:59Saildrone currently has over 100 smaller survey ships in operation with over 10,000 collective

01:05days at sea.