West Coast Weather Buoy Replaced With Saildrone Vessel

What do sailors do when they’re not on a boat? Some like to keep an eye on the boats that are out and about. One such reader, Jean Ouellette, who also happens to be one of our editorial team, lives not far from the Gate and will sometimes check the vessel finder map to see which boats are in the vicinity. Recently, she noticed three Saildrones seemingly wandering around, tacking back and forth, offshore from Half Moon Bay and was curious about their purpose. We reached out to Saildrone, who told us that two of their vessels are doing regular testing, while the third is serving as a weather buoy in place of the standard fixed buoy.

Saildrone’s uncrewed vessel Explorer is currently serving off Half Moon Bay to gather information about wind speed and direction, air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, sea surface temperature, significant wave height, and wave period. The information is delivered to NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), which operates more than 200 moored weather buoys around the globe. The difference is that Explorer doesn’t need to be anchored to the seafloor.

Explorer was deployed in August 2023 and has been delivering data since September 1, 2023.

NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) operates more than 200 moored weather buoys around the globe. They provide data for scientists to study the loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea and the impacts of ocean acidification on Florida’s coral reefs, and monitor the health of the Great Lakes.

“Moored weather buoys are both expensive and difficult to maintain — when outages occur, repairing them requires large, crewed ships and weeks at sea — and the moorings can impact fragile sea floor,” Saildrone explains on their website.

” … if they stay nearby, they’re testing. If they sail away, they’re going on mission :)” Saildrone candidly tells us.

Have you seen Explorer while sailing off the coast?

You can read more about Explorer and other Saildrone vessels here.