Hey All,
So the past day has been extremely hectic…
Yesterday, we had been investigating our options for our mission: recover or continue. We had opened the options to flying to Sao Miguel for recovery, continuing on our journey but sticking close to the Azores for a possible recovery from Santa Maria, continuing and keeping a recovery at Madeira, or pushing our way to La Gomera in the Canaries.
One point that had risen was that we had used more battery over the past few days pulling the data off the glider, running tests, and flying shallow than we would flying normally. After doing a rough analysis of battery power left, we potentially can cover between 1300 and 2300km. The lower end of this estimate really cut it close on whether or not we would be able to make it to the Canaries. Because of this, we had began to run tests flying deeper to see if the leak detect will go off again (basing that the leak will occur at extreme depths). By flying deeper and adding more oscillations between surfacings, we can cover more distance with less battery usage and possibly draw out how far we can go. So far today we have dove to 600m on a single yo and are going to strive for 2 yos at 600m.
While running these tests, we moved the way point to the east in an attempt to get some better progress as we make our way south, however it looks like the currents are so strong going to the North (courtesy of the cold eddy in the vicinity) that we were pushed to the north during the last segment (seen in the picture above).
Challenger then continued on his way after here until morning when we tried to push his limits further by diving to 650m. Our battle weary glider however could not handle the extra pressure and around noon local time, Challengers aft leak detect went off again causing the glider to surface.
Challenger then sat at the surface while we again went through the process of pulling the more in depth files via satellite phone. While at the surface, Challenger once again fell victim to the intensive currents in our area and got knocked around essentially being pushed in a circle.
After the files were pulled, Challenger’s way point was moved back to Sao Miguel where we will most likely recover from within the next few days.
Currently we are about an 8 hr trip from Sao Miguel out to where the glider is. To try and counter the strong Northerly currents we are now diving to 300m over the past few hours. So far there hasn’t been any aborts but hopefully this will be safe enough to get back for a recovery.
We will be keeping a keen eye on the weather and shipping traffic over the next days as Challenger limps back to shore.
At this moment, it looks like waves in the area are up around 5m which is far from ideal for a recovery mission, but this glider needs help and we are going to do our best to get it safe.
Lauren Cooney, Antonio Ramos, & Nilsen Strandskov