Cambrian News reporter Caleb Spencer has been following the amazing journey of a miniature boat that sailed all the way from South Carolina after being launched by a group of schoolchildren, and came ashore in Ceredigion. Here, Caleb finds out where the educational vessel is headed next.

AN UNMANNED boat which was launched by schoolchildren in the USA and washed-up on Borth beach after a 4,800-mile journey across the Atlantic, is to set sail again.

The Carolina Dreamer is a 1.6-metre-long educational vessel equipped with a sail and a GPS device, which was launched on 19 May last year by pupils and staff at the St Andrew’s School of Math and Science in Charleston, South Carolina.

After a brief stop on the island of Bermuda, the boat crossed the stormy North Atlantic Ocean and made what was to be its last GPS transmission on 2 February, showing its location as approximately 10 miles northwest of Aberystwyth.

After St Andrew’s teacher Amy McMahon contacted David Jenkins of Aberystwyth Marina, the Cambrian News appealed for people to keep their eyes peeled while at the beach and to get in touch should they see anything.

Amazingly, within hours of the story appearing on the Cambrian News website, mother Helen Kinks made contact with Richard Baldwin, creator of the USA-based Educational Passages project, saying she had found the boat a week earlier while walking along Borth beach with her son, and that it was safe.

Despite being heavily damaged — the boat had been stripped of its deck and sail — schoolchildren at St Andrew’s were “elated” to discover the boat had been found and was now safe in the hands of pupils and staff at Craig yr Wylfa School, Borth.

“Over the past few months, students from both sides of the Atlantic have been planning the delivery of the new deck and for her launch in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland in July,” Ms McMahon told the Cambrian News.

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