Posted on May 22, 2017
WATERFORD – State Representative Kathleen McCarty (R-38) recently presented a well-known young woman in the Town of Waterford with a citation that recognized her accomplishments in the marine world. Kaitlyn Dow is the proud recipient of the Quartermaster Award, the highest in Sea Scouts. The Sea Scouts is an international organization based on boating and water-based activities similar to the Boy Scouts. The Quartermaster pin is only given after successfully passing a Board of Review conducted by the National Capital Area Council.
Though this event was held to commemorate her promotion to Quartermaster, Dow is best known for her boat that sailed solo across the Atlantic.
As part of a school science project, the Waterford High School senior Kaitlyn Dow built the Lancer, a 5-foot unmanned boat, using materials from a Maine-based educational nonprofit organization called Educational Passages, and the help of science teacher Michael O’Connor.
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution released the boat into the Atlantic Ocean in April 2016. Four months later, in September, the Lancer landed in Ireland. An Irish 8-year-old named Méabh Ní Ghionnáin, who lives on a small island off the coast of County Galway, found it.
Donations from individuals, and money from the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program at UConn, generated more than $3,500 to help pay for Dow to travel to Ireland, repair the boat and set it back out to sea.
Money not spent on the trip to Ireland will go toward a new boat from Educational Passages, which members of the Waterford High School robotics club will outfit with sensors made by a student to track temperature, pH levels, wave height and humidity, and maybe salinity and wind. The new boat also may have a camera that could take images of its voyage.