Scientific floats launched into the sea by the Vendée Globe skippers.

Several Vendée Globe skippers (link 1) have accepted to launch 1 Argo float in the South Atlantic during their race around the globe. The position of the launched has been defined with the scientists to complete the world coverage of the existing float fleet. For this adventure, most of the floats have been adopted by a French school with the names of the children written on it.

Flotteurs Argo - Vendée Globe
Flotteurs Argo - Vendée Globe

The Argo floats (link 2) drift and measure several parameters of the ocean including the temperature, the salinity and the oxygen of the seawater from 2000m deep to the surface.

As soon as these 10 floats identified by their international unique identifier (what we call the WMO code, a series of numbers) have been launched by the skippers (the table shows the detail), they started to measure the sea parameters. This real time data has been continuously integrated in databases and is available to users through this product (link 3) of the European Copernicus Marine service.

Boat name

Skipper name

Float serial

WMO

Vidéo

V&B MAYENNE

Maxime Sorel

AI3500-23FR008

1902729

SINGCHAIN

Jingkun Xu

AI3500-23FR009

5907135

https://twitter.com/XJKRacingTeam/status/1863137962348683694

OLIVER HEER OCEAN RACING

Oliver Heer

AI3500-23FR010

3902619

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugrzpm5l7d0

FREELANCE.COM

Guirec Soudée

AI3500-23FR011

5907136

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1x9cbANbLA

NEXANS SOLO SAILOR

Fabrice Amedeo

AI3500-23FR012

6990673

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wdsdNrqAUbA

VULNERABLE 2

Sam Goodchild

AI3500-23FR013

7902229

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1sMUK0gX1o

FOUSSIER

Sébastien Marsset

AI3500-23FR014

3902620

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvIOKNyMVBc

PAPREC ARKEA

Yoann Richomme

AI3500-23FR015

3902621

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J8Ouu67KCk8

DMG MORI

Kojiro Shiraishi

AI3500-24FR001

3902622

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPPlpdhcIfA

NEW EUROPE

Szabi Weores

AI3500-24FR002

1902730

News written thanks to the support of Noé Poffa and Vincent Bernard (Ifremer, France)

 

To go further

 

Link 1: https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/article/vendee-globe-skippers-will-take-scientific-measuring-equipment-them

link 2: https://argo.ucsd.edu/

link 3: https://data.marine.copernicus.eu/product/INSITU_GLO_PHYBGCWAV_DISCRETE_MYNRT_013_030/description