A tiny sailboat built by a high school senior from Waterford, CT has successfully traveled thousands of miles from the coast of Cape Cod across the Atlantic to Ireland.
Waterford High School student Kaitlyn Dow built the boat last spring as a project for her marine science class filled with memorabilia from her school and the state of Connecticut. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution released the sailboat into the waters above the North American continental shelf in May, The Day reports.
Four months later, it washed up in Ireland. It was discovered by 8-year-old Méabh Ní Ghionnáin, a resident of Droim, Leitir Móir, Connemara, Co. Galway.
The boat was still intact and had only a few scratches on the school logo of the Waterford Lancers painted on its side and about an inch of water in its hull. It had landed on a beach close to Méabh’s house.
“In the middle of the day we went walking by the sea, and then we saw this white thing,” said Méabh. “We went down to it and it was the boat.”
All summer long, Dow and her science teacher, Michael O’Connor, had tracked the boat’s GPS coordinates. As they watched the boat approach the west coast of Ireland, they started trying to contact anyone and everyone they could think of who might pick it up. (Read more.)