MUN SailBOT team arrived in Kingston on Saturday evening. The next day we worked on getting the systems ready for the competition on Monday. With new electronics from QKits electronics in Kingston the boat was ready to do some testing on the water.
The Team arriving at Kingston Yacht Club for the First Time
On the first day of the competition sailing was challenging since the wind was at an impressive speed of 25 knots! The events were called off until 7 pm in hopes that the wind would die down, but not before we bent the boom mount. The rest of the day was spent getting the boat ready for the heavy winds. When we finally hit the water at 7 pm, it was still very windy and we lost our long antenna out on the water. While the boat was competing it was rocking a lot from the high winds and waves, and we took on some water. We managed to get the boat back into sailing condition, sealing the leaks until late into the night.
Jaylan with Sea++ on the dock
On Tuesday we had a bit more luck, with the wind not blowing quite as strong. We competed in the station keeping event, where Sea++ had to stay within a boundary box for five minutes autonomously and then leave as close to the five minute mark as possible. We improved on our results from the day before, getting 8.1/10 points for our run right after competition was postponed due to rain.
All in all there have been some challenges so far, but we are adapting to them and getting the boat back on the water quickly.
Tonight the team is leaving for Kingston, Ontario! We finished painting the boat this morning and are preparing for our flights. We tested for the last time yesterday and the autonomous code is working very well. As you can see in the video below it was working almost a little too well and we were having some trouble keeping up with Sea++ on the water.
