Saildrone, the California company best known for sending its ocean drones into the hearts of hurricanes, has achieved a new milestone. Its fleet of uncrewed surface vessels has surpassed an incredible cumulative distance of 1,000,000 nautical miles during more than 32,000 days at sea, deployed on missions around the globe.
Equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth 48 times and almost 89 years at sea for a single vehicle, this milestone demonstrates the scale of Saildrone’s operations. The company’s ocean drones are being used extensively by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to gather critical climate data and map the seafloor in previously unexplored regions.
Interestingly, this record for Saildrone comes exactly 10 years after the company logged its first major milestone by sending off an ocean drone on a 2,200-nautical mile journey from San Francisco to Hawaii in October 2013. That expedition took only 34 days to complete. Today, the Saildrone fleet contains 136 vehicles varying across three different sizes.
“Evolving the Saildrone design, capabilities, and team has been an incredible journey,” said the Saildrone founder and CEO, Richard Jenkins. “This million-nautical-mile milestone is a huge achievement in a relatively short time frame. It underscores the reliability we have achieved and confirms our unique position as the only proven long-range, long-dwell ocean drones.”
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