On May 1, we ran a story about a oceanographic experiment in the Pacific Ocean being run by University of Washinton students who are taking part in a program called the Student Seaglider Center. One of their seagliders, named the Pigeon, was malfunctioning\u00a0 southeast of Hawaii and would not reach its destination in Hawaii before its battery ran out.<\/p>\n
Business officer and communications director Layla Airolo reached out to a handful of publications with a request to spread the word in the cruising community that Pigeon need to be rescued. Still transmitting its GPS position, it was possible for the SSC team to give the glider’s position to any boats passing nearby.<\/p>\n
In a lucky break, the 36-foot sloop Oatmeal Savage with the Ventilly family aboard got the notification through the press, contacted the SSC, and was able to find and retrieve the Pigeon.\u00a0 In the process, the crew of Oatmeal Savage<\/em> also had to rescue the crew of the cruising boat Flow<\/em> which had a damaged rudder and needed to be abandoned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here is the story that Layla sent to us on the Pigeon’s rescue.<\/p>\n Oatmeal Savage<\/em> to the Rescue.<\/p>\n Thanks to relentless outreach spearheaded by Chief Business Officer Airola\u2014including a feature in Sail Magazine, Yachting World, Latitude 38, and Blue Water Sailing\u2014we received an email from a Canadian family on May 30th. The Ventilly Family<\/u>, aboard their 36-foot sailboat SV Oatmeal Savage<\/em>, were sailing from Tahiti to Hawaii when they came across our call for help and offered to attempt a rescue.<\/p>\n As they approached Pigeon\u2019s last known location, the family received a distress call from friends aboard SV Flow<\/em>, about 200 miles behind. SV Flow had lost their rudder and needed to abandon ship. The Ventillys turned back and rescued them\u2014adding two adults and their belongings to their already small sailboat. Still, with six people aboard, they continued toward Pigeon.<\/p>\n On June 5, in the deep blue Pacific around 10\u00b0N, 145\u00b0W, the Ventillys spotted our beloved hot pink Pigeon. They hauled her aboard and secured her to the swim platform. The issue was immediately apparent\u2014half of her rudder was missing. Without it, she had been struggling to steer and maintain buoyancy for months. How it broke off remains a mystery\u2014one of the ocean\u2019s many secrets.<\/p>\n On June 11, SV Oatmeal Savage pulled into Hilo, Hawaii, where Chief Scientist Kohlman and SSC member Paige McKay <\/em>were waiting dockside. After six months and over a thousand miles, Pigeon was on land. Her journey was historic. From the equator to 10\u00b0N, she collected continuous profiles down to 1000 meters, capturing: Tropical Instability Waves, a transect of the equatorial current system, the biologically rich cold tongue, the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and much more.<\/p>\n Already, two undergraduate students (Kathryn Farabaugh and Lydia Kelley) have analyzed and presented some of Pigeon\u2019s collected data at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium in May 2025).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Established in 2022, the Student Seaglider Center (SSC) at the University of Washington is a student-led, student-run lab dedicated to training the next generation of ocean scientists and engineers. Through hands-on experience, students plan scientific missions, rebuild and maintain Seagliders, and pilot them on extended deployments. The SSC is home to 24 undergraduates from across UW and 3 graduate students from the School of Oceanography. The team is guided by mentors Sasha Seroy, Rick Rupan, Fritz Stahr, and Charlie Eriksen. The lab is structured into three core teams:<\/p>\n Seagliders are autonomous underwater vehicles capable of collecting high-resolution vertical profiles of ocean data\u2014from the surface to 1000 meters depth. They measure oxygen, temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, and turbidity. Piloted remotely from land, Seagliders offer a low-cost, long-duration alternative to research cruises. They can stay at sea for 7 to 9 months, gliding silently beneath the waves. Thanks to Chief Engineer Brosius and her engineering team, the SSC has successfully rebuilt four gliders so far.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In November 2024, Chief Scientist Kohlman embarked on an ambitious mission. Aboard the R\/V Sikuliaq, she joined a group of researchers from WHOI, Scripps, APL, and OSU investigating mixing beneath Tropical Instability Waves (TIWs) in the equatorial Pacific. These TIWs, large wave-like meanders along the equator, influence ocean mixing, air-sea interactions, biological productivity, and even global climate patterns. It took a week of steaming to reach the deployment site at 0.5\u00b0N, 140\u00b0W.<\/p>\n There, Kohlman deployed a beloved glider from the SSC fleet\u2014a hot pink Seaglider built in the early 2000s, affectionately named Pigeon on November 21st around 3 am. The name was fitting: like homing pigeons, the glider was meant to return home\u2014on its own. After rendezvousing with NOAA PMEL’s TPOS Saildrones and the Wirewalkers from APL and Scripps, Pigeon was programmed to fly herself nearly 1300 miles from the equator to Hawaii, collecting data all the way.<\/p>\n This was not a typical glider mission. Few have attempted such a long, remote traverse. But Pigeon and her on shore support team was up for the challenge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three to four months into the mission, pilots noticed something was off. Pigeon was still transmitting data and GPS signals, but she wasn\u2019t flying efficiently. Progress had slowed dramatically. With no onboard cameras and no ships nearby, the cause was a mystery. What was clear: at this rate, she wouldn\u2019t reach Hawaii before her batteries ran out.<\/p>\n The SSC launched an urgent search for vessels in the region that might assist with recovery. But the central Pacific is vast and lonely. Ships were few and far between. Pigeon\u2019s plight underscored both how remote her journey was and how valuable her data had become.<\/p>\n By May 26, 2025, Pigeon\u2019s dive battery finally died. She could no longer submerge and was now drifting at the surface. Fortunately, she was still pinging her location. Ironically, ocean currents began pushing her toward Hawaii faster than she had ever traveled while diving. Hope flickered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nRead the full saga below.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Journey of Pigeon: A Seaglider Saga<\/h4>\n
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A Mission Like No Other<\/h4>\n
Trouble Midway<\/h4>\n
A Family, A Sailboat, A Rescue<\/h4>\n