The boys released the toy boat into the North Sea one year ago, and with an extra cushion of polystyrene and Lady Luck on their side, it’s covered nearly 3,000 miles. In fact, as you read this, it’s floating past the sun-kissed coast of Guyane, by South America.
Such a grand voyage was never a part of the plan. Or rather, the Ferguson family never imagined that the boat, which they counterbalanced with an extra weight and equipped with a tracking device, would last so long. “After trials in [an] open air swimming pool, they took it to the coast and launched it into the waves,” reads the family’s website, “It carried a message asking anyone who found [it] to return it to the sea after recording where they found it.”
The starting point was Peterhead, Scotland. Since then, it’s traveled to Denmark, where it was picked up and relaunched by a family; then to Sweden, where it almost met a fatal end by crashing into a tree (a woman found it, and repaired it), and rode the wake of a full-rigged Norwegian ship (the captain was a fan) called the Cutty Sark, and traveled all the way to the Atlantic.
Apparently, the toy boat, which was aptly named, “Adventure”, suffered “rigging damage” and weathered sails. Thankfully, “the actual repairs were undertaken by crew members that had helped restore the Cutty Sark, so [Adventure] was in capable hands,” says the Ferguson family.
The best part of the voyage has been the way it engages the brothers with technology, the outdoors, and, well, the world. Anyone can track the ship’s progress on their website and Facebook page, and everyone has; it’s bursting with digital love letters of encouragement and excitement to see where the ship ends up. Here’s a snapshot of its whereabouts on April 22.
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