Phloat - Phil's Boat 2023

  • Team Name: Philip Smith
  • Location: Cambridge, UK
  • Boat Name: Phloat
  • Intended Route: East to West
  • Class: Sailing
  • Division: Unmanned
  • Length: 100 cm (hull), 103 cm (overall)
  • Weight: 8.5 kg
  • Beam: 24 cm
  • Draft: 25cm
  • Hull type: IOM
  • Rig Design: Single sail which can fully rotate around mast, spring loaded to centre line of boat.
  • Power source: 3 Ah 8.4V Lithium battery and 3x solar panels providing approx 200mA at 9V
  • Actuators: KST MS 825 rudder servo, with contactless position sensor and brushless motor. The sail is passively held against the wind by springs.
  • Sensors: GPS Neo6 and LSM303DHLC compass.
  • Communications: Iridium 9503 RockBlock
  • Computers: STM32L412RBT6P (32bit low power Arm Core, 128kBytes flash memory, 40kBytes SRAM) This is on the ST development board, “Nucleo” which includes an ST-LINK programmer and debugger.

Phil has competed in prior Microtransat years, click here for info on his 2019/2020 entry.

Phil's Boat - Phloat
Background by Jenna Bash on Unsplash