So Giancarlo Pedote’s boat will help us learn more about our seas

Sailing around the world on the IMOCA 60 Prysmian Group, at Vendée Globe, for sailor Giancarlo Pedote is not just a sporting challenge. But, thanks to the Sailing4Ocean project , it is also an opportunity to collect valuable data on the health of the ocean through special sensors and share it with the international scientific community .

How Sailing4Ocean works

Three “actors” revolve around the project. Prysmian Group, a world leader in cable systems for energy and telecommunications, Giancarlo Pedote (of which Prysmian has been a partner for nearly 20 years) and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC). Aim: monitoring the health of ocean waters using the Group’s proprietary Pry-Cam technology.

Video – This is how Pedote’s IMOCA analyzes the Ocean.

The secret? Pry-Cam Technology

Created to be applied primarily to the world of electricity, Pry-Cam technology is based on artificial intelligence algorithms and patented sensing technologies. It is extremely flexible and can be adopted wherever there is a need to collect quantitatively measurable data.

Prysmian has equipped Pedote’s IMOCA 60 with Pry-Cam technology (which, said company CEO Valerio Battista, is available to any other ocean racing boat that wishes to fit it), equipping it with sensors-designed in collaboration between EOSS, Prysmian Group’s Electronics and Optical Sensing Solutions division, and CMCC-capable of collecting data on various parameters in the geographic areas of navigation. During navigation, data collected from the sensors are collected, digitized and transmitted to the CMCC via Pry-Cam Minolog devices that acquire data in analog mode and transfer them to the vessel’s transmission devices in MOD-BUS digital mode.

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Data recorded in the Ocean

Specifically, the data collected refer to:
– GPS position of the boat
– boat speed
– CO2 concentration in the environment
– atmospheric pressure of the environment
– Water temperature on the two sides and on the boat bulb
– temperature inside the boat
– humidity of the environment
– dew point or dew point of the environment
– Irradiance level of the environment.

The test navigation carried out in August 2022, was the first test bed to which the sensors reacted positively, demonstrating the effectiveness of the installation solutions adopted to withstand the high mechanical stresses (on an IMOCA under sail, the vibrations are crazy!) to which they are subjected during navigation.

What happens to the data collected in the ocean?

The data are analyzed and validated by the CMCC before being made freely available to the international scientific community through interactive weather-marine forecasting applications, the Emodnet portal, and the Copernicus Marine Service platforms, the set of European Union Earth observation systems dedicated to monitoring our planet and its environment for the benefit of all European citizens.

The same data will also be used by the CoastPredict program, which, as part of the UNESCO Decade of the Sea, redefines coastal sea forecasts and observations on a global scale so that science responds in an increasingly effective and timely manner to the needs of society. Specifically, data collected by the IMOCA Prysmian Group will be used by the UN Decade of the Ocean project PredictOnTime to provide new services, products and capabilities for marine forecasting based on innovative and globally integrated systems.

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The data acquisition and transmission system will make it possible to collect information in geographic areas of the globe not easily accessible with traditional data collection devices and monitor the health of the waters that will be sailed by Giancarlo Pedote, on the occasion of his next great challenge: the 2024 Vendée Globe (solo round-the-world race).

Sailing4Ocean. The statements

“Knowing that every time I train or compete I contribute to the preservation of the Ocean is an added motivation for me. Knowing that I can do this thanks to the support of my Main Sponsor, who has been with me for 17 years, and from an important institution like CMCC, is something that goes even further: I feel even more accompanied in each of my solo sailings,” says Pedote.

“We know that we live in a time when everyone’s actions are driven by the information that is gleaned from reading data, and the more objective the data, the greater the impact it has on the decisions and actions that are taken,” said Roberto Candela, CEO of EOSS – Electronics and Optical Sensing Solutions, a division of Prysmian Group.

“In CMCC’s advanced and multidisciplinary scientific research, sea forecasting and the collection of data on which it is based are a crucial frontier in ensuring sustainable development of societies and economic activities that cannot be separated from the protection of coastlines and marine ecosystems,” said Giovanni Coppini, director of CMCC’s Ocean Predictions and Applications Division. “CMCC’s contribution ensures that the data collected will take on a highly operational function globally, serve to improve our knowledge of the sea and produce increasingly detailed and timely global, regional and coastal marine forecasts, which will be made available to decision makers, businesses, society and citizens through the applications produced by CMCC and used in international contexts in Europe and beyond.”