Adapting the existing coastal patí a vela fleet for scientic purposes

Abstract

This paper presents the first results of the Barcelona Institute of Culture’s grant for research and innovation projects under the 2019 Barcelona Science Plan entitled “Development of a citizen monitoring program for the Barcelona waters: The Scientific Patí a Vela”. The main objective of this project is to develop a small Patí a Vela (PV) fleet that can routinely sample the Barcelona coastal waters and report their observations to an open-access interactive web. The Patí a Vela boat was designed in 1942 by the Mongé brothers. It is a lightweight one-person catamaran with a single Marconi sail and no boom. The main objective of this contribution is to adapt the Patí a Vela model attaching an on-board platform with scientific instruments (sensors and devices) and determine the new stabilitycharacteristics and seakeeping performance. This will allow an adequate sampling of the Barcelona coast waters and the systematic measurements of the essential physical and biogeochemical variables detecting variations along the coast, hence identifying potential sources of contamination. It will also provide the necessary knowledge of natural and anthropogenic seasonality.