About/History

The International Robotic Sailing Regatta (SailBot) is a robotic sailing competition held in North America in which teams of university,  college and high school students compete. The first event, in 2006, was hosted by Queen’s University, at Kingston, Ontario and was inspired by the success of a senior project at the University of British Columbia to build a robotic sailboat. Since 2008 teams have annually competed throughout the US and Canada, with teams traveling from as far away as Europe and Brazil. The goal is to create an unmanned sailboat that navigates through a variety of challenges with limited, if any, human control. Students are able to use this friendly competition between schools to apply their engineering knowledge in a multi-disciplinary task that requires mechanical, electrical, software and engineering management skills to deal with this highly variable environment.

The competition is oriented to boats competing in the SailBot Class (up to 2 meters in length) but smaller boats are popular due to their easier logistics. There is an Open Class (which are boats up to 4 meters in length) oriented toward non-school teams. Occasionally boats above two meters in length enter in preparation for the MicroTransAt Challenge (max 2.4 meters length) or the  World Robotics Sailing Championship (up to 4 meters in length). Many teams use the MaxiMOOP as their first platform due to its convenient size (1.2m), light weight (20 kg), much greater payload capability than an RC boat and improved seaworthiness.

SailBot Perpetual Trophy

Past SailBot Events 

2024 – Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA

2023 – Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA

2022 – Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

2021 – (not held due to COVID-19)

2020 – (not held due to COVID-19)

2019 – Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

2018 – Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

2017 – Annapolis, Maryland, USA

2016 – Kingston, Ontario, Canada

2015 – St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada

2014 – Vallejo, California, USA

2013 – Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA

2012 – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

2011 – Annapolis, Maryland, USA

2010 – Kingston, Ontario, Canada

2009 – Annapolis, Maryland, USA

2008 – Annapolis, Maryland, USA

2007 – (not held)

2006 – Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Note! Details of past events are in some cases quite lacking! If you have additional information, please send it to us!