Rowing across the Atlantic—with UVic’s help

Later this month, when four men push off from Africa’s westernmost point to row across the Atlantic, they’ll give both the mundane routine and the complexity of their daily schedules over to a computer program developed at UVic. The Ocean Adventure Rowing (OAR) Northwest team, including Olympic gold medalist and UVic and Vikes alumnus Adam Kreek, will share a modified 29-foot rowboat for the Africa to the Americas 2012 trip, embarking from Dakar, Senegal for Miami, Florida—a 6,700-kilometre trip across the Atlantic expected to take 60–100 days.

Every aspect of the foursome’s schedule—from taking scientific readings to sleeping to simply brushing teeth—will be increasingly governed by an adaptive scheduling system developed as part of the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work course in UVic’s Department of Computer Science.

Such rigorous scheduling is important because the rowers—Kreek, Markus Pukonen of Tofino, and Jordan Hanssen and Pat Fleming of Seattle—must apply their wide range of expertise, all while becoming increasingly mentally and physically fatigued, making their ability to organize otherwise simple daily tasks much more difficult.

While dealing with this challenging environment they will be making critical decisions involving meteorology, navigation, nutrition, oceanography, technology, shipboard and oceanic emergencies, expedition planning, sports medicine, interpersonal communication and leadership.

“They’ll be rowing 12 hours a day and sleeping in shifts. They need a really structured schedule,” says Alessia Knauss, a PhD candidate leading the UVic aspect of the project, which also includes master’s students Angela Rook and Jason Cummer.

A key characteristic of the program, designed as an Android app by Cummer, is its ability to automatically make tiny incremental adjustments to update daylight time according to the longitudinal positions of the rowers on the ocean. It then coordinates with a calendar app to keep the rowers on track.

Although other programs existed offering similar features, none could adjust incrementally to changing time zones (the team will cross five) and none was easy enough to use for people under the kind of stress the rowers will endure.

The three-person programming team pulled the project—part of Knauss’s doctoral dissertation—together in a mere eight weeks. It began after Dr. Daniela Damian, who teaches the CSCW course, ran into Kreek in the airport and got chatting about the adventure and the participants’ needs.

The Canadian Wildlife Federation-sponsored expedition has partnered with UVic and other organizations to conduct research during the trip. The boat will be loaded with various equipment powered by a wind turbine and solar panels to monitor underwater marine life sounds, ocean temperature, density, acidity and carbon dioxide levels.

The rowers themselves will also be under scrutiny, as the Centre for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary monitors their circadian rhythms under the effects of physical stress and a disrupted sleep schedule—they’ll nod off in short shifts to keep the boat constantly under power.

That research makes the scheduling app even more vital, as any disruption could compromise the circadian rhythm data being collected.

“They see it as a fifth person on the boat who is coordinating everything for them,” says Knauss.

To track the team’s progress or for more information, go to http://oarnorthwest.com or
http://www.cwf-fcf.org/en/action/awareness/africa-2-america/