We are following this exciting scientific adventure, hoping that the all alloy Mayflower makes it from Plymouth in Devon, UK, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the USA without any technical hitches - on the next attempt perhaps. Anyway, fingers crossed. 

The Mayflower appears to have started out well, passing the Scilly Isles as planned, then veered south, pushing forward, and then it looks as though the ship was blown backwards, before heading north and then resuming a south-westerly course. You can find out more about progress on the official websites (urls below).

Following the sixth day of autonomous navigation, on the seventh day of the attempt to cross the Atlantic ocean the MAS 400 appears to be experiencing difficulties.  We are looking forward to what happens on the eighth day of the next attempt, and hoping that either the Mayflower is able to resume her journey, assuming she will have been recovered and returned safely to base for attention. This was only a glitch, with (we are told) a small item needing replacement. If it turns out to be anything more than that, we hope they take their time and fix it (more panels, whatever) and don't give way to media pressure. We have been there before. It is better to be methodical and run more tests, than rush to try and complete this year : )

TRANSATLANTIC EVENT CALENDAR 2021

The IBM Mayflower MAS 400 is an autonomous trimaran powered by a diesel engine, piloted by a solar powered artificially intelligent computer system developed by IBM called 'AI Captain.'

MAYFLOWER PILGRIMS VOYAGE - MAS's direction of travel is the reverse of the Scout and Voyager autonomous Atlantic attempts that took advantage of trade winds. The Mayflower will be heading into prevailing winds. If sail powered, she would need to tack. But powered by a diesel engine, there is no need for that. Energy from nature is used to power the onboard AI and satellite communications. Any surplus could aid propulsion.

JOURNEY TIME

The original wooden 30-meter Mayflower took 66 days to carry the Pilgrims, Founding Fathers from the U.K. to what is now the U.S. The voyage would have involved a lot of tacking, because sailing ships cannot sail directly into the wind. But the new sail-less aluminium boat should take two to three weeks (14-21 days) depending on how strong the prevailing trade winds are.

LINKS & CONTACTS

https://mas400.com/

http://www.promare.org/projects/
https://newsroom.ibm.com/then-and-now