The day’s headline event, the Endurance Race, presented Energy Class competitors with a challenge that tested their prototypes on every level. For nearly three hours, teams had to complete lap after lap of the course while striking the best balance between performance, energy consumption and mechanical reliability.
At the end of the race after completing 79 laps, Elettra UniGe Team (Italy) won ahead of Physis-Polimi Energy Boat (Italy) in second, while the University of Bologna Argonauts Team completed the podium with 76 corrected laps.
At the same time, the AI Class continued their programme with the Figure of 8 Race. This exercise is designed to assess the ability of autonomous boats to navigate without human intervention along a course that required the boats to change direction and stick close to the trajectory.
This trial was dominated by the Adria Autonomous Boat Team (Croatia) which completed the course in 44.44 seconds. TGM – Solar Boat Team (Austria) took second place ahead of UGent Sailing (Belgium). The results show how fast the AI category has progressed, having been introduced to speed up the development of autonomous navigation and decision-making support systems.
In the SeaLab Class, sea conditions prompted the Race Committee to adapt the format. Originally scheduled to cover 16 nautical miles, the race was shortened to 5 nautical miles. Red Wave (Italy) won with a time of 25 minutes 15 seconds, ahead of the TU Delft Hydro Motion Team (Netherlands), which crossed the finish line after 43 minutes 7 seconds. The main aim was to assess solutions developed by the teams in real-world conditions, prioritising system reliability and sustained performance, not just the top speed.
Boats in the Open Sea Xperience category also competed on the same course, with XNRG topping the ranking.
In the Energy Class, the Elettra Unige Team is setting the pace, while Red Wave holds the provisional lead in the Sea Lab Class, as does the Adria Autonomous Boat Team (Croatia) in the AI Class.
The competition continues on Saturday with the slalom and Championship Race for the Energy Class boats, and the AI Slalom and an endurance race for the Sea Lab class.
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