Lincoln County students and Yachats volunteers add Yaquina Neversink to the world’s fleet of tiny research vessels

This story was originally published on YachatsNews.com and used with permission.

Daniel Roser admits there may have been a time or two this summer when his job assembling a five-foot-long, self-contained mini-boat felt like a bit of a chore.

Take, for example, the long hours required to sand a ship’s fiberglass hull before launching it into the Pacific Ocean. In those moments, said Roser, a 17-year-old Toledo High School graduate, there was little visible except piles of dust.

“But at the end of each day, I remind myself that I am building a tiny unmanned research vessel that will transmit important data for many years,” he told YachatsNews. “So actually the end goal definitely outweighs any annoying tasks.”

The official name of the RSV Yaquina Neversink is its progress across the ocean can be tracked here in real time — was prepared as part of one of the many summer training courses offered this year. This experience involves partnerships with the Lincoln County School District and various local organizations, made possible through significant government funding.

The mini-boat program attracted about a dozen students from several Lincoln County high schools and was hosted by the STEM Center at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center on the Oregon Coast.

“The idea was that these kids would spend two weeks afternoons building a boat from a kit,” said Kama Almasy, director of STEM Hub. “It turned out to be a really cool project that we think taught the students a lot about the marine environment.”

The idea to build the miniboat came from Tracy Crews, a Yachats resident who works as deputy director of education for Oregon Sea Grant. She also helped launch and lead the Oregon Coast STEM Center, one of 13 state-funded partnerships aimed at enhancing students’ skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“We first did this about nine years ago when boat kits were much simpler,” Crews said. “But it was an exciting project. The students were really engaged and committed and seemed to really enjoy each other and the process.”

The ultimate goal for Roser and volunteer engineer/mentor Rick Peters was to help launch the finished product from the OSU research vessel. However, strong winds and high tides thwarted the mission. Instead, the actual launch took place on September 21, 150 miles offshore from the Bell M Shimada, a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

Neversink

But at first there were tasks that could sometimes seem a little tedious.

For example, the boat’s fiberglass keel needed ballasting and bracing. Its keel, Roser will tell you, required hours of sanding. To help the Neversink withstand the harsh sea conditions, three coats of anti-fouling paint were applied to it.

Finally, the students attached a small mast that allows the Neversink to sail with the wind wherever it takes it.

Peters, a former robotics instructor and experienced woodworker who lives in Yachats, took part because he wanted to volunteer in Hatfield town centre. After undergoing training for the center’s volunteers, just a few days later he learned from Crews that he needed to build a mini-boat kit equipped with a GPS transmitter and sensors that measured air temperature, water temperature and orientation.

“It was a great thing for everyone,” Peters said.

Eventually he and Roser became the technical team overseeing the placement of the electronic sensors. As a bonus, the two recently took a trip on an OSU research vessel tasked with collecting core samples around the university’s PacWave testing facility in the open ocean off Seal Rock.

“He’s the real deal,” Peters said of Roser, a self-described “ex-Navy guy.” “I’ve never been sick at all.”

During the Neversink’s two months at sea, it wandered south along the west coast, then turned west, began to move quickly and is currently located off the coast of the large island of Hawaii.

Minbot fleet

The Neversink kit and optional sensor package cost about $7,500 and were purchased from Educational Passages, a nonprofit organization based in Northwood, New Hampshire. The boat is one of 25 boats launched by high school students across the country this summer and joins 211 other boats that have been launched. since 2008.

The continuous stream of data produced by this real fleet of mini-boats is regularly used by ocean researchers who monitor water and air temperatures and seek to better understand wave patterns, said Cassie Stymest, the organization’s executive director.

“We always remind people that this isn’t just a cool little extracurricular project,” she said. “It’s a truly intense learning experience that has touched hundreds and hundreds of students over the years.”

Just as important as the launching of the boats is the eventual restoration of the boats, she said. Notes posted on the ships’ hulls recommend taking it to the nearest high school, wherever the ship washes ashore.

Also included are instructions on how the boats can be repaired for re-floating, as well as contact information for the student group that originally dumped the boat in the ocean.

To date, mini-boats launched in the Pacific have appeared in Hawaii and in places as far away as the Marshall and Solomon Islands, Stymist said.

And when a mini-boat launched by four students in Newfoundland washed ashore in Ireland a few years ago, the students boarded a plane to retrieve the boat in person.

“The scientific and cultural connections involved in these programs can be really deep,” she said. “And for the boats, they can send data back for years and years.”

Back at Yachats, Peters puts it differently.

“These mini boats are actually a message in a bottle to help other kids get interested in science,” he said. “That’s really what we’re all looking for here.”