Hello, has anyone in this group used a BlueBoat at sea? Trying to understand if this craft could run for 24 hours out at sea, for example 100 miles off shore. Would it cope in an Ocean. Thanks
Your question is rather vague; there is no clear-cut answer.
Several aspects come into play (non-exhaustive list) beyond the possible technical capacity of the equipment: legal, weather, sea state, animals, etc.
Hi Lyra, sorry for being vague. If the BlueBoat was out at sea, is the boat self-righting? We have developed small micro generators which take the energy from the pitch and role of the boat so that with a solar panel should keep the batteries topped up, assuming we include the max available battery pack. We have already figured out the sat comms via Sat to update Arduboat way points and also pass data back to shore. The only concern we have at the moment, is will the boat self-right when it is tossed around in a storm. Thanks
The offset of the Center of Gravity (CG) from the Center of Buoyancy (CB) will determine its stability. If there is too much stability, the self-righting is not possible.
On a catamaran, upright stability is very good up to a small heeling angle, and inverted stability could be also too much “good”.
What you are looking for is a stability curve of a BlueBoat in a given configuration and righting moments.
Take a look at the “Stability curve – Catamaran vs. keel monohull” diagram from the follwing How many hulls is too many ? – 70th parallel
A monohull keelboat have great upright stability for a great heeling angle, and a “bad” inverted stability.
Some non-keeled USV (monohull and catamaran) use a curved arch to reduce the inverted stabilty.
Hi @ianmaciver, welcome to the forum 
That would largely depend on the conditions at the time. If the water isn’t too choppy then it may be fine, but if it’s stormy with significant waves then it could flip over, or could get crashed into something and get damaged.
No - the BlueBoat does not have the kind of shape or mass/buoyancy distribution that would cause it to automatically right itself if it ended up flipped upside down. There’s some possibility a wave could flip it back upright, but that’s not guaranteed.
You could reduce the chances of it flipping over by adding a large and heavy keel fin, but that adds drag and complexity, and makes it more likely to get caught on things in the water.