Boat Details - Gortobot v4 2019
- Team Name: Gortobot
- Location: Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA
- Boat Name: Gortobot v4
- Class: Sailing
- Division: Unmanned
- Intended Route: West to East
- Length: 1.81 m LOA, approximately 1.3 m LWL
- Weight: 8.1 kg
- Beam: 0.51 m
- Draft: 0.69 m
- Hull and Rig Design:The hull is a foam kid's surfboard with 2 layers of fiberglass on top for durability. Enclosures and solar panels are mounted onto surfboard via aluminum rails. The mast is 1" aluminum tube connected to a 7/8" aluminum tube frame with boom and gaff. The sail is 4oz. dacron with brass grommets in the corners for attaching to the frame.
- Power source: 2x LiPo batteries each with 4400 mAh capacity at 3.7 V. 2x 2 Wpeak 6 V solar panels.
- Actuators: The mast is turned by a worm-gear drive brushed DC motor connected via a chain drive. No rudder.
- Sensors: GPS, temperature/humidity sensors in the main enclosure
- Communications: Iridium Rockblock modem
- Computers: Arduino Mega
- Other Interesting Things: The boat has no rudder and relies on sail/keel balance for steerage. When heeling, it can sail about 120 degrees off the wind in either direction. It cannot go upwind. It has routines for zig-zagging downwind when that is desired. Because of this, the computer enters sleep mode and the whole system uses very little power in between logging events.
