Hey All,
I just wanted to leave everyone with a quick update before the end of the night.
In the North Atlantic, Silbo is still muscling his way through the northward flux as we brainstorm ideas to find a more favorable route to take.
Tomorrow, we may make the way point change I had mentioned 
Although it looks like there is a clear path for us to take based off of the model, this overlay is only of the surface and tomorrow I will focus on getting subsurface currents to see if that picture gets any better. This subsurface northward flux has plagued Silbo now for months and we really need to figure a way out. One glimmer of hope was during an oddity that Silbo encountered late last week. Silbo’s mission file reset mid segment resulting in a short dive that prevented Silbo from going the full 1000m. On the short dive, Silbo recorded currents that were in fact flowing in the general direction of what the model was showing, providing us with the theory that the subsurface currents are what is slowing Silbo’s progress.
If we can pin point where these negative currents are, we may be able to adjust the depth Silbo is flying to to try and make some more favorable progress. This however will cause a trade off with power consumption as we will move the pump more by making shallower inflections so we will have to weight the consequences when there is enough evidence to make a decision.
On the other hand, in the South Atlantic Challenger is still making good progress as she flies towards international waters.
Challenger is now 175 km away from international waters. Once there and free of the danger of interfering with another countries boundaries, we will expand our view and find the most ideal path onward towards Brazil.
The way point given towards the end of last week is still proving its worth as it now allowing us to fly along the top of this warm eddy that will essentially carry us out of South African waters.
This is also seen in the maps from GeoEye and SeaStar that Antonio has gotten for us that show the warm eddy is similar proximity to the glider, providing that current to the north west that will carry us out to sea.
Over the past couple days, Dave has also been doing some fine tuning to Challenger’s flight parameters. For example, we have been adjusting the cc’s on the pump throw to make adjustments to our dive and climb angles, changing the gains on the steering parameters, and testing out the low power mode. The last one here is key as we will need to conserve power if we want to make it all the way across the Atlantic Basin on these batteries. She has impressed us so far, but she still has a long road ahead.
Force Wind Sea & Honor