The Ocean Cleanup Project

Update

After performing a visual inspection in Hawaii, it was much more apparent that the structural malfunction originated at the dovetail welds. An underwater photo of the break showed concentric rings that would increase up through the HDPE pipe, indicating that a fatigue fracture had propagated from an initial crack located between two welds for the dovetail, which could have only resulted from this aspect of the design.

TheOceanCleanup.com, Updates, March 29, 2019 - System 001 Learnings Root-causes Summarized.

The break was caused by their design assumptions. The stabilizers caused stress upon a certain segment of the welds that are used to connect each section. They have redesign that already.

As far as plastic floating into the system and leaving (and collecting behind it), their findings are that wind moves the plastic much faster than they designed the system for (System 001 moves too slow allowing plastic to float out or run into it). Since nobody has really done this before they used best guesses for their model of the surface conditions. With new, real world, data, they have re-engineered how their skimmer operates. So...

They will refabricate back at the home office in San Francisco and re-launch in a couple months!

Source: The Ocean Cleanup website

Here is the video on RCA (can't watch right now but will in a bit, hence the post).

An 8-meter (26-foot) sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 22 kilograms (48.5 pounds) of plastic in its belly, prompting the World Wildlife Foundation to sound an alarm Monday over the dangers of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea.

phys.org - WWF sounds alarm after 48 lbs of plastic found in dead whale.

More than 2/3rd of its stomach was full of plastics. Female sperm whale was also pregnant but unable to eat and digest food spelled doom for mother and baby.

Sometimes humans suck!

We have a new launch time and a new system.

So after the original design suffered a stress break the Ocean Cleanup Project performed a RCA. From those findings they have revamped System-001. It has a new design which removed the stabilizer frames (the part that caused the fracture last time out). They have scaled down (the web just says, "factor of 3" but that does not really help out with the concept of "size" as in, "factor of 3 of what?"!!). They also decided to build modular so if their tests pan out they can get more systems together, more quickly. They have removed some of the bulky electronics and have a new screen design.

New name too! System-001/B

They also have two options they will try out. Travel faster than the plastic; or, anchor it in place. That is what they are going to try to do to keep plastic from leaving the scoop once it enters. And as their title says, they re-launch in June (a few short days away!)

SYSTEM DESIGN UPGRADES COMPLETED, TO BE RELAUNCHED IN JUNE.

Here is to a better campaign this time round!