Hello, 
3 weeks without updates - where were we last time? Again, so much has happened. As we do it every time, we are proudly introducing our team member. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mathew Lippincott from the Public Laboratory.

Introducing Mathew Lippincott

Video by Toni Nottebohm 

Prototype testing!

Also we went testing our latest prototype, a 3 meters long Protei! We tested the machine without motors at the sailing club on Kaag Island where we go every saturday. 
We departed from the V2_ workshop at Hofman en Zonen in Rotterdam, took the  good old van. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5986361697/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5981770570/

The day we tested we had quite strong winds, Beaufort 4 with 5 gusts of wind. the part that might have suffered the most was the mast but it survived thanks to its elasticity. 

Roberto ended in the water with the help of Francois and it was actually very useful for testing the prototype.

Without motors, we were just moving Protei around with cables and we had good surprises of how it moves with the waves. 

Francois de la Taste had the genius idea of setting up a camera on board of Protei. This is what you would see if you were riding a Protei : welcome on board!

We also have underwater pictures showing us how much Protei had deflated and how well the keel did. 

Protei in China

Thanks to the amazing work of Kasia Molga, Sey Min, helped by Boris Debackere, , Simon De Bakker from V2_ and Daniel Henneberger (amazing team support!) : Protei is in China! Protei, "under cover" of the art piece "Oil Compass" is exhibited at the National Museum of Art in Beijing China in the "Weather Tunnel". 

See this awesome interactive installation. 

According to the words of Kasia Molga : "Oil Compass v.1" is currently exhibited in National Musuem of Art in Beijing, China. It is an interactive visualisation depicting “past”, “present” and possible “future” scenarios of oil spills in world's oceans; and threats which oil rigs and tankers carry while scattered all over the planet. Based on Google Earth API, it take live data visualisation of oil tankers and oil rigs and juxtaposition it together with the 10 worst spills in the history put together with data of energy consumption (and therefore need for oil) all over the world. "Oil Compass v.1" was produces in V2_ in Rotterdam as a part of Protei development - unmanned drone which can clean waters - brainchild of @Cesarharada

Zeilen magazine

We also had a great article in a Dutch Sailing Magazine Zeilen. You can buy this one in magazine stores nowadays. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5984217898/sizes/z/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5984218860/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5984220374/in/photostream/

And the journalist Willem Plet also took a nice group picture of us :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/5980916849/

Protei official Logo

Thanks to Nadine Freischlad (Open_Sailing) who organised the competition we got the wonderful logo designed by  Роман Яблонський from Ukraine!

http://www.jovoto.com/blog/2011/07/protei-chosen-design/
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/protei/ideas/14655

So, we are now getting in touch with Роман aka Romko to see how this design with fit on our sail, t-shirt, manuals, rewards! 

Wrap up

We have one month left to make it happen before we hold our press conference the September 2nd at 17:00 in our workspace in Rotterdam - PLEASE COME! We have not yet seen Protei sailing autonomously and the pressure is rising on the team in Rotterdam. We are working hard every day and we hope we will soon be able to show you a video of Protei sailing proudly. I hope in the next update!

Have a great week !!!

Cesar