AN UNMANNED boat which washed up on Borth beach after a 4,800-mile journey from the USA, has had a positive start to its homeward voyage.

A Cambrian News appeal helped locate the Carolina Dreamer, a 1.6-metre-long educational vessel equipped with a sail and GPS device, which was found on Borth beach by Helen Hinks and her children in February, after being launched by schoolchildren in Charleston, South Carolina, on 19 May, 2015.

Because the boat was in such a poor state after its mammoth journey across the Atlantic Ocean, pupils, staff and parents at Ysgol Craig yr Wylfa, Borth, joined forces to repair the Carolina Dreamer in preparation for her intended return home.

Schoolchildren at Ysgol Craig yr Wylfa travelled down to Fishguard last month to hand the boat over to teacher at St Andrew’s School of Math and Science, Charleston, Amy McMahon, who handed her over to crew aboard the US Naval training vessel, TS State of Maine.

The repaired boat was relaunched on Monday, 18 July, a few hundred miles off the north west coast of Spain, and the latest GPS signal showed the boat to be travelling in a general south westerly direction.

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