After a very long night of running tests, and an even longer day full of tours of the lab, the day is done and the glider team can relax a little. Upon arrival to the glider around 2am, the team started communications with Jim on his boat off of St Helena as he reported that Challenger was completely covered in biology. From mats of algae to clouds of barnacles and a mysterious something-or-another that was interfering with the tail, our glider seemed to have quite a hefty coat over her. Soon after, members of the crew jumped in the water with an underwater camera to document the best they could the condition of the glider- then they scrapped it all off.
Once we had confirmation that the glider was clean and in one piece, we began running the test missions, including dives to 60 m, 500 m, and 1000m to test everything from the glider’s weight in the water, status of the CTD sensor and steering ability.
Not only did Challenger appear to be operating well again, but she flew up near 30 km/day! compared to our post siesta status, where we have been averaging out at about 12, this is incredible news as we have now regained >90% of the speed we managed at the very beginning of the mission.
With the voltage our batteries we have left and our newly attained velocities, we are confident we can now push onwards towards Ascension and recover and rebattery there within the next two months.
Tomorrow Antonio will update us with his cubes, but it looks like the currents are all headed North West in the direction we want to go, so hopefully with our newly cleaned glider, we will make some good progress over night as our glider team takes some very well deserved rest.
Great Work Team!!
Force Wind Sea & Honor