Sailing Drones .au: Voyager 1

Voyager 1 was planned as a quick build and launch of a relatively uncontrolled boat to test the out various technologies and design ideas in the lead up to the development of more sophisticated boats.

Voyager 1 is a 1.5 metre sailing vessel that used Vane Steering to control its direction. The Vane Steering was set to steer the boat almost downwind, with the wind about 20 degrees on the starboard quarter.

The aim was to launch the boat from the south-east corner of Australia at a time when the westerly winds would take it out into the Tasman Sea in a south westerly direction. Hopefully it would travel south of New Zealand in the Southern Ocean.

The actual path of Voyager 1 can followed here ww2.acaciacs.com.au/voyager1

The hull for Voyager 1 was not specially built for this task, It is actually a third-hand hull from a catamaran. It was built by Doug Hemm, then given to Jeff Gray, and then given to me (All members of Royal Yacht Club of Victoria).

Third-hand Catamaran Hull

The first task was to strip off the deck and remove centreboard in preparation for fitting out the hull as a monohull.
Balsa bulkheads were fitted, and an aluminium frame was added which incorporated a centerplate casing.
Mounting points were added for mounting the Vane Steering gear and also for securing payload. The payload is the modified SPOT GPS satellite tracking system described in an earlier posting here.

Hull fitted with New Aluminium Centreplate Frame, Bulkheads and Equipment Mounts

A small hull will always leak.
If it is to remain afloat for months, then it must be intrinsically buoyant, regardless of leaks. This was handled by using expanding foam filler.
Expanding foam is not the best foam to use for buoyancy. It is not a closed cell foam, and if structure surrounding the foam flexes, then the foam will crush and become water-logged.
In this case, there weren't a lot of choices and so expanding foam was used.

Expanding Foam added before trimming back

Most of the detailed components in Voyager 1 were fabricated in ABS plastic using 3D Printer. The images below show the Vane Steering Gear and the equipment mounts mostly fabricated in ABS plastic.