This U.S. science class launched a sailboat. It landed in Norway 15 months later

It's been a long journey since Sheila Adams and her Grade 5 class built a sailboat and set it off into the Atlantic Ocean.

For almost a year, the Rye, N.H., teacher and her science class tracked the miniature, drifting boat and even received pings from a GPS device they placed on board. But then they lost signal last fall — and wondered whether their boat got hit by a storm.

After months of silence, the now-retired teacher heard that ping again in January. And she was surprised to see that it came from Norway.

"It's been very exciting," Adams told As It Happens host Carol Off. "I went back into the school and had told them [each student] individually what was happening."

They launched the boat, which they called the Rye Riptides, to learn in a more interactive way about the weather and ocean currents, as well as geography and routes of exploration. 

Educational Passages, which is a nonprofit in Maine, supported the science class in this project with the materials to build the miniature sailboat and track its journey.

With the help of a bigger ship, the class got their boat to start sailing from the Gulf Stream. 

"If we put it out where we live … on the continental shelf, it would just come right back to us," Adams explained.

Anchored in Norway

After 15 months, Rye Riptides landed on Smøla Island, about halfway up the coast of the Nordic country.

"Now we really wanted someone to find it and take it to a school [there]," the teacher said.

Adams went online and found the owner of a rental property near the boat's GPS coordinates.

That owner then turned her question to a local Facebook group. Soon enough, a family volunteered to retrieve the boat that day as soon as their son returned from school.

"They thought it was across the way from their house," Adams recalled. "And sure enough, they went over there and found the remains of our boat."

By that point, Rye Riptides was covered in gooseneck barnacles and had lost its mast. The hull and keel were damaged, but the cargo full of maps, letters and coins that Adams's class carefully stored beside the GPS was still intact.

As for the family that found the boat, their son is also now in Grade 6. He took the boat to his school, where he and his classmates eagerly opened the cargo last week.

On Thursday, both his class and the students in New Hampshire will navigate the time difference and meet for a video chat.

Written by Mehek Mazhar. Interview with Sheila Adams produced by Niza Lyapa Nondo.