Student Club Competes at World Robotic Sailing Championship

A team of professors of the University of Porto/INESC TEC and students from the student chapter participated in the seventh World Robotic Sailing Championships/International Robotic Sailing Conference that took place in Galway, Ireland, in September. This annual event joins the international community working in various scientific and technologic subjects related to the development and operation of autonomous surface vehicles powered by the wind. This relatively new type of robotic vessel exhibits a huge potential for long-term missions at sea for a wide range of applications such as scientific sampling of ocean data or marine surveillance with above the surface or underwater sensing devices. The Portuguese team entered the event with two robotic autonomous sailboats developed by the students at the University of Porto, in the scope of the student chapter's activities. The larger 2.5 meter-long sailboat FASt won two of the four challenges, aimed to evaluate various aspects of performance, like speed, maneuvering and accuracy of course, and was awarded second place overall.

Event Photographs: