In the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small autonomous sailboat named Warrior has been sailing around in a roughly 250 mile wide oval for the last 90 days – seemingly stuck and unable to continue its hoped-for journey to Europe. The boat’s persistent conundrum opens a window into understanding the ocean currents that drive the weather and have shaped the history of places from New England to Africa.

Warrior heads off into the North Atlantic after being relaunched by the Canadian Coast Guard. [Image courtesy Canadian Coast Guard]
Warrior was built in 2023 by students at Hanscom Air Force Base Primary School as part of a program with the USS Constitution Museum. After fifty-one days at sea, Warrior  landed on Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. It was transported to Halifax, where the boat was then refurbished and relaunched by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic with the assistance of the Canadian Coast Guard.

Hanscom Air Force Primary School students with the miniboat Warrior after a ceremonial launch alongside USS Constitution in May 2023.

 

The miniboat Warrior on Sable Island, after its first voyage. [Photo by Zoe Lucas]
Warrior was launched the second time just south of the Gulf Stream, but initially worked its way north and either picked up a favorable breeze or the ocean current that carried it east for about 250 miles. But there, it turned south and slowed down. Exiting the current, Warrior may have caught an eddy, or offshoot of the Gulf Stream that drove it south. Once it fell out of the current, its speed slowed and it began to meander back toward the west.

The path of the miniboat Warrior‘s second voyage. [Image courtesy of Educational Passages]
Like all vessels, the miniboats are affected by both wind and currents. The jet stream, the prevailing driver of weather conditions, has shifted to the north, possibly contributing to the miniboats’ journey, but its meandering motion over the last few months also points to the broader pattern of ocean currents in the North Atlantic.

The North Atlantic gyre, as it’s known, is a clockwise pattern of major ocean currents and smaller eddies and subgyres that dominate the entire North Atlantic basin from Greenland and Iceland to the equator. The warm water Gulf Stream surges up from the Caribbean past Florida and along the U.S. East Coast before curving west toward Europe. There is a portion of it that branches off and continues north toward the English isles while another flow turns south toward Africa. Off the coast of West Africa, the current turns west back across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

The North Atlantic Ocean currents form a gyre, leaving a stiller area in the middle. [Image courtesy ESA EduSpace]
Accompanied by prevailing winds, these currents dictated much of the European sailing ship traffic that shaped the development of the Americas. Ships leaving the east coast of North America sailed north with the Gulf Stream toward Europe, but would take a southerly route returning.

In the middle of this clockwise rotation of currents lies a much stiller area of ocean, where the current and winds are generally weaker. Current eddies driving toward the center carry sargasso seaweed, nicknaming the region the Sargasso Sea. Like sargasso, the miniboat Warrior appears to have been driven toward the center of the gyre. This region has also become known as a circulation center for plastic garbage, which much like the sargasso and the miniboats, is driven into this stiller area of the ocean. Though it has become popularly known as the “garbage patch,” much of the plastic debris has broken down to near-microscopic levels, which then dramatically affect the marine life.

Above the water, a dominant high-pressure weather system tends to hang over much of this region, producing lighter winds and calmer conditions in general. The combination of light winds and little current mean floating objects like the miniboats can be caught and stay in the region for extended periods.

But none of this means that Warrior and its sister ships will never make their way out of the center of the gyre. With the coming of winter, low pressure weather systems are more common offshore and may carry Warrior back up into the Gulf Stream on a ride to England and northern Europe, or it may move far enough east to catch a southerly current toward Spain or Africa. In between are the Atlantic isles of the Azores, which has already been the landing place of another USS Constitution Museum miniboat, Teal Turtle. Any option would be an exciting next step in Warrior’s journey! Track the miniboat directly on the Educational Passages website.

The Author(s)

Carl Herzog
Public Historian, USS Constitution Museum

Carl Herzog is the Public Historian at the USS Constitution Museum.


Sarah Dunbar
Community Engagement Manager, USS Constitution Museum

Sarah Dunbar is the Community Engagement Manager at the USS Constitution Museum.