Spotter Deployment

DISCOVERY Yacht Vibrant Curiosity / Trans-Atlanticm
April 2021

In April 2021, DISCOVERY Yacht Vibrant Curiosity deployed the first Spotters of the year! The vessel Vibrant Curiosity originally held a SeaKeeper 1000, an instrument that collected open-source oceanographic data that was used by scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA). In 2021, Vibrant Curiosity rejoined the DISCOVERY Yacht fleet by deploying 38 Spotters while crossing the Atlantic. We are very grateful for their important contributions to oceanographic science.

This Citizen Science initiative is a partnership between SeaKeepers and SoFar Ocean, a company dedicated to creating pervasive sensor networks that understand and monitor ocean environments and provide critical data for ocean enthusiasts, industry, and conservation. They accomplish this by integrating three different but critical perspectives: deep domain expertise in oceanography; human-centered product design; and the engineering know-how to get it all done. Spoondrift and OpenROV have merged to form SoFar and accelerate a future with better tools to understand and explore the ocean. This deployment marks an important addition to the Spotter network; while may Spotters have been deployed in the Pacific Ocean, more deployments are needed to build a comprehensive network in the Atlantic Ocean.