THE ATLANTIC CROSSING OF A TOY BOAT

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Another unusual Atlantic crossing, this time from the West to the East, from America to Europe and without any crew. The protagonist of this hard endeavour is Carolina Dreamer, a 5-foot-toy boat built in fiberglass by some students of a primary school in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.

They were studying oceans and the project proposed by their teacher was to put to the sea a small sailing boat to see where it could arrive. On it, only a box with children’ s taughts and a GPS device to follow its route.

Put to the sea in May 2015, the boat reached Bermuda Islands after less than a week. From there, it continued to sail in the Northern Atlantic for nine months, always followed by the students until GPS stopped to work some weeks ago. It was probable that the Atlantic Ocean destroyed the boat and the suprise to see it in a photo, showing it on Wales’ coasts, must have been enormous. Who found it was a mother walking with her children on the beach: while watching to the sea, one of them saw the boat coming alone from the ocean, pushed by waves, in a moment the family defines “magical”.

Since GPS signal was lost, the American students had been contacting all harbours and coastguards in the other side of the Atlantic, this tam-tam was successful and all the pieces of this odd story have been put together.

Carolina Dreamer was mistreated a lot by the ocean: it lost its sail and now it appears in no very good conditions. Anyway, it sailed about four thousand miles between Southern Carolina and Wales. Now, the students want to restore it and let it sail in the opposite itinerary, from the East to the West.