Hey All,

So towards the middle of last week after our progress continued to dwindle due to the poor currents flowing to the south east, Dave and I move the way point back to the north east, right on top of Ascension Island.  This location we were hoping would give 29 enough wiggle room to get going in the right direction without trying to overcompensate too much for the poor currents, effectively reducing our speeds.

Now after a few days, it looks like it is finally starting to pay off:

After the dip we suffered towards the end of last week, Challenger’s velocity is beginning to bring itself back up as the currents slowly spin around to the east from southeast.

Looking to Pinzon above, we are hoping that the new way point will allow us to swing around to the north and then north west the as oscillation of the currents becomes more favorable as time goes on.

Looking to the engineering data that Dave keeps us up to date on (seen in the figures above and below) we can see that as our speeds increase, Challenger is continuing to glide smoothly through the water. Above we can see the smooth profiles of our yo’s as we dive to 1000m and then climb back up to just over 100m from the surface as to avoid the productive waters at the surface.

Below we can see that with the way point back to the west, our heading error has dropped back to acceptable levels from the compass issues we were having earlier in the mission.

To the North, Silbo continues to push westward parallel to the equator as we set our eyes on our new caribbean goal.  Now just 1500 km from Barbados, we expect that Silbo could make it there as early as late July.  Once there he will receive a much deserved rest before getting new batteries and setting sale once more to continue his course along the North Atlantic Gyre.

Unfortunately, we are still seeing unfavorable currents at depth that want to push Silbo back to the north east direction.

We can also see that after everything Silbo has been through, he is showing signs of being tired.  He is flying much slower than 29 and the flight through the water is much less smooth.  The pump also continues to move multiple times on dives and climbs indicating there may be an issue that will need to be resolved after we recover

Force Wind Sea & Honor