Blog

Saildrone enjoys sharing our experiences, industry insights, and learnings. Read our articles below to find out what we’ve been up to.

A Fresh Breeze of Innovation for Physical Oceanography in the 2020s
Science

Saildrone Chief Scientist Dr. Eric Lindstrom offers a perspective on the future of physical oceanography and ocean observation over the next decade.

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Building an Ecological Baseline in the Central Pacific Ahead of Deep-Sea Mining
Missions

The 30-day mission supported by a Saildrone Award studies the behavior and environmental influencers of small fishes, squids, and crustaceans in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

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Saildrones Work with Ships for 2nd Time During NOAA Fisheries West Coast Surveys
Missions

The 60-day Saildrone effort to assess stocks of Pacific hake and five coastal pelagic species was carried out in two sub-missions extending the full length of the US west coast, from San Diego to Cape Flattery.

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NOPP Grant Creates 3-Way PPP to Advance Ocean Mapping
Company

UNH, MBARI, and Saildrone will work together to advance deepwater ocean bathymetry thanks to a three-year grant from the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.

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Surveying Ocean Eddies: Hot Spots of Biological Productivity
Science

Two Saildrone USVs join the German RV Meteor and other unmanned technologies to study Atlantic Ocean eddies during the #MOSESeddyhunt in the first phase of the 2019 ATL2MED mission.

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Record Number of Crabs Located During First Crustacean Tracking Mission
Missions

Two saildrones equipped with acoustic receivers located 34% of the Alaska red king crabs that were tagged by NOAA Fisheries in June.

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Saildrone Joins Multiplatform MBARI CANON Experiment
Missions

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s annual experiment to investigate the diurnal vertical migration included a Saildrone USV equipped with an echo sounder.

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Saildrone Launches First Atlantic to Mediterranean Mission
Missions

Two Saildrone USVs are sailing from Cabo Verde to Trieste, Italy on a six-month mission to better understand ocean acidification, the global carbon budget, and the socio-economic impacts of a changing ocean ecosystem.

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Saildrone and JAMSTEC: Innovative Data Collection in the Western Pacific
Missions

The first partnership between Japan’s premiere marine-earth science agency and Saildrone included missions to the reference KEO offshore buoy, a study of the Kuroshio Current, and at the site of the Tropical Pacific m-Triton buoy.

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Saildrone USV Completes First Atlantic Crossing East to West
Missions

After setting the record for the fastest unmanned Atlantic crossing, SD 1021 has now completed the return journey, not only beating its own record time but also becoming the first autonomous vehicle to transit in both directions across the Atlantic Ocean.

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NASA’s Eric Lindstrom to Join Saildrone as Chief Scientist
Company

Dr. Eric Lindstrom, Physical Oceanography Program Scientist at NASA, will oversee the new Saildrone Ocean Observing Network.

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Autonomous Vehicles for Cost-Effective Global Ocean Mapping
Technology

Saildrone USVs can not only significantly reduce the cost of ocean mapping at scale, but they can also more easily and efficiently reach the most remote corners of the ocean.

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Behind the Scenes: A Closer Look at Saildrone Mission Management
Technology

Saildrone USVs are operated on a mission-as-a-service model and monitored from Saildrone Mission Control in Alameda, CA.

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Saildrone Joins CENIC’s 100Gbps Advanced Broadband Network as Pilot Partner
Company

The City of Alameda launched the first-of-its-kind pilot project to bring high-capacity network access to Alameda Point research and development companies.

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Saildrone at OceanObs’19
Science

Join one of four USV working groups to participate in the further development of the Saildrone global surface observing network.

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Shipwreck Discovered During Proof-of-Concept Multibeam Bathymetry Mission
Technology

Saildrone partnered with the University of Southern Mississippi and NOAA to complete our first shallow-water multibeam bathymetry mission in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Gain a Competitive Advantage on the Water with Saildrone Forecast
Forecast

Saildrone Forecast offers high-definition weather data tailored for competitive and recreational sailing. It’s great for other wind and water sports, too!

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The White Shark Café: Saildrones Augmenting Ship Operations (Video)
Science

Two Saildrone USVs participated in a multidisciplinary effort to understand why great white sharks swim more than 1,300 miles each year to an ocean desert in the North Pacific.

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Saildrone Gulf Stream Data Set Available on EMODnet
Data

Data from the 2019 Gulf Stream mission to quantify wintertime air-sea heat exchange is now available on the European Marine Observation and Data Network.

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Saildrone Completes Fastest Atlantic Crossing by Unmanned Vehicle
Technology

After suffering damage in a Gulf Stream storm, SD 1021 received a new wing in Bermuda and set out for the Solent on a mission to complete the fastest unmanned Atlantic crossing.

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Unprecedented In Situ Southern Ocean Data Set Released to the Public
Data

Data from the First Saildrone Antarctic Circumnavigation has been released to the global scientific community on Saildrone’s new data portal, data.saildrone.com, a repository of high-resolution in-situ observations collected by our global fleet of ocean drones.

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Saildrone Completes First Autonomous Circumnavigation of Antarctica
Missions

SD 1020 survived freezing temperatures, 15-meter waves, 130 km/h winds, and collisions with giant icebergs to complete the 22,000-kilometer mission in 196 days.

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Saildrone Forecast Is the Official Weather Sponsor of Cowes Week
Forecast

Competitors at Cowes Week 2019 will have access to Saildrone Forecast, the first weather app powered by data from sailing ocean robots.

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Building a Planetary-Scale Drone Fleet to Monitor the Ocean
Science

Wind and solar-powered autonomous vehicles are helping scientists to answer previously unanswerable questions about Earth’s oceans.

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Tracking Alaska Red King Crabs Using Saildrones
Science

NOAA Fisheries and the Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation have teamed up to track seasonal movements of Alaska red king crab using a Saildrone USV equipped with an acoustic receiver.

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NASA’s SPURS-2 Comparison Measurements Demonstrate Saildrone Capabilities
Technology

Saildrone-ship-buoy comparisons were a key objective during NASA’s SPURS-2 field campaign, as highlighted by a paper published in a special issue of Oceanography.

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Autonomous Vehicles Will Be Integral to the Future of Tropical Pacific Observations
Missions

Saildrone USVs have completed a series of missions to test the platform as part of the Tropical Pacific Observation System monitoring El Niño weather events in the Pacific Ocean.

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Pacific Mission Demonstrates USV Capability to Detect Oil Spills
Technology

The Saildrone USV equipped with a ROW sensor is the first platform capable of long-range autonomous oil spill detection in marine environments.

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Leveraging New Ocean Data to Create a Better Weather Forecast
Forecast

Forbes puts Saildrone Forecast among an innovative group of products developed by startups revolutionizing how weather is predicted.

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Fleet of 7 Saildrone USVs to Survey US West Coast for NOAA Fisheries
Missions

Two concurrent missions will cover some 2,500 kilometers of coastline from San Diego to Vancouver Island.

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Antarctic Fur Seals As an Indicator of a Changing Ecosystem
Science

Changes in the Antarctic ecosystem could impact the fur seals’ food supply, making foraging harder and in turn affecting the overall health of the population.

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Largest Saildrone Fleet Ever Launches 5th Annual Arctic Mission
Missions

Six saildrones were deployed from Dutch Harbor, AK, to survey ongoing changes in the Arctic ecosystem in partnership with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and Alaska Fisheries Science Center and NASA.

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Bring Antarctica to Your Classroom with These STEM-Oriented Lessons
Science

Saildrone has partnered with the 1851 Trust to develop a series of data-driven lesson plans on issues related to the 2019 Antarctic Circumnavigation, free for teachers and educators.

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Can You Identify These Antarctic Seabirds?
Science

Penguins are the most famous of Antarctic seabirds, but the region is home to dozens of pelagic species, including albatrosses, petrels, and terns.

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Norway Launches Saildrone USVs in the North Sea for Fisheries Research
Missions

The 2019 Sandeel and Saithe Mission will be the first European test of Saildrone USVs in partnership with Norway’s Institute of Marine Research.

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100 Days in the Southern Ocean
Missions

SD 1020 is more than halfway around Antarctica, well on its way toward completing the first autonomous circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean.

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Measuring Wave Height in the Southern Ocean
Technology

Waves play a critical role in the health of the world ocean ecosystem.

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Is It a Whale? A Dolphin? Or a Shark?
Science

SD 1023 captured this image in the Arctic, sparking a lively discussion among the Saildrone team and our science partners.

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How Do You Measure Current with Sound?
Technology

During the 2019 Antarctic Circumnavigation, Saildrone is taking critical measurements of Earth’s only circumpolar current.

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From Seaplanes to Saildrones: Reviving a Former Naval Air Station
Company

Saildrone HQ is located in a former airplane hangar with a storied past—and once was used to film The Matrix Reloaded.

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Using Ocean Drones to Track Fur Seals in the Bering Sea
Missions

How innovative autonomous technology is helping scientists to solve the mystery of northern fur seals disappearing from the remote Pribilof Islands.

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Why It Matters: Carbon Uptake and the Southern Ocean
Science

The Southern Ocean is critical for controlling how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, but as the water absorbs more carbon it becomes more acidic—and that could affect the health of a lot of organisms.

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Studying Carbon Uptake in the Southern Ocean with Unmanned Surface Vehicles
Science

Just how variable is CO2 uptake in the Southern Ocean in winter?

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Storms Pound the Southern Ocean, SD 1020 Soldiers On
Missions

60+ knot gusts and massive breaking waves? That’s just a typical day in the Southern Ocean.

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Predicting Polar Vortex Events with Ocean Weather Data
Forecast

A fleet of saildrones is collecting data from the Arctic to the Antarctic collecting data to make extreme weather forecasting more accurate and accessible.

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Assessing Fish Abundance on the West Coast in 100 Days
Missions

The 2018 West Coast Fisheries Survey combined the efforts of a NOAA research vessel and a fleet of saildrones to observe and collect data on fish and marine mammals from anchovy to humpback whales.

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120 Years Separate These Two Antarctica Expeditions
Missions

Two centuries after the Belgica expedition became the first to survive a winter in Antarctica, Saildrone launched the first autonomous circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean.

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Saildrone Launches Atlantic Mission to Quantify Ocean Carbon Exchange
Missions

This 30-day mission to study air-sea heat and carbon exchange in the Gulf Stream is made possible by a Saildrone Award.

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What Is a Saildrone, and Why Is It Sailing Around Antarctica?
Missions

The Saildrone Antarctic Circumnavigation, in partnership with the Li Ka Shing Foundation, is the first autonomous circumnavigation of this remote region.

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Daughters of Rosie: Upskilling Women* for Jobs in Manufacturing
Company

Saildrone is proud to partner with Daughters of Rosie to offer new and exciting composite manufacturing career paths that support women—no experience necessary.

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Saildrone Fleet Launches in New Zealand on Epic Journey
Missions

The first autonomous circumnavigation of Antarctica provides an unprecedented opportunity to bring this remote marine environment to the classroom.

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What Chinstrap Penguins Tell Us About the Health of the Antarctic Ecosystem
Science

Saildrones will attempt to track and study the behavior of chinstrap penguins tagged with GPS locators during the 2019 Antarctic Circumnavigation mission.

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Can a Wind-Powered Ocean Drone Circumnavigate the Most Extreme Ocean?
Missions

Three Saildrone USVs launched from Bluff, NZ, January 2019. Their mission: the first autonomous circumnavigation of Antarctica.

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Saildrone Forecast: Weather Insight for Everyone
Forecast

Check out the first weather forecast powered by ocean drone, available in the iOS App Store and on the web!

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What We Can Learn from Studying Antarctic Krill
Science

Bring Antarctica into your classroom with three STEM-oriented lesson plans that teach students about krill and its role in the global food web.

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Saildrone Award Winners Address Big Questions with Autonomous Technology
Science

The Saildrone Award provides researchers with 30 days of ocean data collection for an innovative research project.

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First Saildrone Data Set Available for Public Access on NASA PO.DAAC
Data

The Saildrone Baja Campaign studied upwelling and frontal region dynamics, air-sea interactions, and diurnal warming effects along the US/Mexico coast.

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Extending Ship-Based Surveys in the Arctic with Ocean Drones
Missions

A flotilla of saildrones established a new northern record for an autonomous vehicle while measuring CO2 and Arctic cod abundance in the Chukchi Sea.

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Saildrone at the Exploratorium for Ocean Discovery Month
Technology

Watch Saildrone COO Sebastien de Halleux in an Ocean Discovery Talk about how USVs are collecting valuable data in remote and dangerous parts of the ocean.

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Using Drones to Survey Fish Stock: Our First Full West Coast Mission
Missions

In the Summer of 2018, five saildrones embark on the first autonomous full West Coast fisheries survey, in collaboration with Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Oceans Canada, and the NOAA research vessel Reuben Lasker.

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A Step Towards A Quantified Planet: Announcing Our $60 Million Series B
Company

We are thrilled to welcome Horizons Ventures as a new partner to help accelerate Saildrone’s vision of a Quantified Planet.

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Why We Know More About Other Planets Than Our Own – And What We’re Doing About It
Data

Hint: A fleet of autonomous ocean drones collecting unprecedented amounts of data.

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A Gateway to the Southern Ocean
Company

Today we are announcing an important development: Sending our first fleet of saildrones into the Southern Ocean, in partnership with CSIRO, Australia’s pre-eminent national science organization.

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How a Fleet of Wind-Powered Ocean Drones Is Changing Our Understanding of the Oceans
Technology

Learn how wind and solar-powered saildrones are collecting data at sea in unprecedented detail.

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How Unmanned Surface Vehicles Use Sound to Count Fish, Whales
Science

Saildrone and NOAA have been working closely to pioneer the use of autonomous technology for fisheries management and conservation.

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Studying Natural Oil Seeps in the Gulf of Mexico with Unmanned Surface Vehicles
Missions

Saildrone helped ECOGIG consortium researchers understand the effects of wind and current on natural oil slicks and their larger impact on the Gulf ecosystem.

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Expanding Our Fleet of Sailing Drones
Company

Excited to announce we raised $14 Million in Series A to expand our fleet of sailing drones and grow our data services.

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What Is a Saildrone and How Does It Work?
Technology

A saildrone is a sailboat-like uncrewed vehicle designed to provide cost-effective solutions for in situ data collection in the most remote regions of the ocean and in the harshest conditions.

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How the Saildrone Wing Was Born
Technology

The saildrone's patented wing design enables the USV to cross oceans while only consuming a few watts of electricity—but the wing was originally born on land.

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