Lost American boat found on Pendine beach (From Western Telegraph)

Lost American boat found on Pendine beach

3:10pm Saturday 26th January 2013 in News

A miniature unmanned vessel has made a sea voyage of more than 3,000 miles to end up on Pendine beach.

The incredible journey of the little boat, named the Charger, began on the east coast of the USA last May when she was launched by students as part of the country’s Educational Passage programme.

The aim is for the craft to be tracked through on-board GPS, and students at John Winthrop Middle School in South Carolina thought that the Charger had sunk without trace when the satellite had failed to function in November.

But unknown to them, the craft was forging her way across the Atlantic, and was found on Pendine beach on January 8th during a daily check by staff from Qinetic, which runs the range on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

“It was a really unique discovery,” said Pendine Range’s environmental and community liaison officer, Katie Martin. “The school thought the Charger had gone down in the sea after some software malfunction messed up the GPS.

“Since May, she’s been through a hurricane and some big storms, even coming ashore twice on that side of the Atlantic.

Finally, she got a good wind, came across the Atlantic and landed on Pendine beach.”

The boat’s cargo hold contained pictures, local information and a USB stick with music recorded by the American students, and most of it survived despite a water leak.

Katie has now put the school in contact with Ysgol Dyffryn Taf and hopes to take the Charger along for a visit.

“Then it’s going to be collected and relaunched by a British contact of the school, but not before we put our Qinetic logo on the side,” said Katie.

“It’s really exciting to know that we have played our part in the boat’s voyage.”