International Robotic Sailing Competition at Cal Maritime

Vallejo, CA (June 6, 2014) – Teams from the United States, Canada, and Wales will be competing in an international robotic sailing competition beginning this weekend at Cal Maritime.

The SailBot 2014 International Robotic Sailing Regatta is a robotic sailing competition historically held in North America in which teams of university and college students compete. The first event, in 2006, was hosted by Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and inspired by the success of a senior project at the University of British Columbia to build a robotic sailboat.

The goal is to create an unmanned sailboat that navigates through a variety of challenges with limited, if any, human control. Students are able to use this friendly competition between schools to apply their engineering knowledge in a multidisciplinary task that requires mechanical, electrical, and software skill to deal with this highly variable environment.

The competition is open to the 1-meter, 2-meter SailBot Class, and an Open Class which is for boats up to 4 meters in length. The sailboat competition consists of multiple events and will run June 7-13. Teams competing this year are from Aberystwyth University in Wales, Virginia Tech, the U.S. Naval Academy, the University of British Columbia, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Tufts University, and Cal Maritime.

The best times to observe the competition at Cal Maritime will be on Monday and Tuesday, June 9 and 10 from 11:00 a.m. until noon and from 1:00 until 5:00 p.m.

Information about parking on campus: www.csum.edu/web/about/parking
Information about Sailbot 2014: www.sailbot.org

ABOUT CAL MARITIME
Established in 1929, California Maritime Academy, a campus of The California State University, is the only degree-granting maritime academy on the West Coast. Located in Vallejo, Calif., the campus serves 1100 students and offers undergraduate degrees preparing students for careers in engineering, transportation, international relations, business, and global logistics. It also offers a master’s degree in Transportation and Engineering Management, as well as a number of extended learning programs and courses.

Source: Bobby King, Cal Maritime