Far be it for us to shit on anyone’s dreams, but it looks like this Oregon hipster and tall ship sailor ain’t gonna be crossing oceans in his five-foot long boat any time soon. Still, while Matthew Kent is a long way off of the $300k he’s looking for, he’s already raised 10 grand – which should be more than enough to buy some freeze-dried and get to work on achieving his Darwin Award! Wanna donate and see if this salty dog can accomplish something dumb? His Gofundme page is here. Thanks to SA’er ‘full circle’ for the find. Title inspiration here.
The Little Boat Project, created by Matthew Kent, a professional tallship sailor with over 8 years of sailing experience, is a design challenge to break the world record for the smallest boat sailed across the Atlantic. With the current world record set at just 5 feet 4 inches long, we are attempting to break the record by almost 2 feet with our boat of 3 feet 6 inches!
The real challange isn’t to sail the boat however, but the design that goes into it. Challenges of design have ranged anywhere from food storage and structural stability to getting enough exercise and safely navigating over 4500 miles of open ocean.
The desiging of the vessel, The Undaunted, began over 4 years ago. From CAD drawings to measuring the volume of granola bars it has been a remakable and unique challange so far and we are only getting started. We are planning to leave from the Canary Islands in March of 2017.
