Redwing Recovery: How Malizia Explorer Contributed to a Global Collaboration Success Story in Ocean Observing

On 19 May 2026, scientists, Ocean modellers, navigators, and Ocean observation experts, including Team Malizia and the Malizia Explorer, came together to continue a unique mission: bringing home and giving a second life to an underwater robot that had sustained damage during an unprecedented journey across the Ocean. 

The story began in October 2025, when Redwing, a new-generation autonomous Ocean glider, slipped beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Deployed by the Teledyne Webb Research team, the mission aimed to achieve the first circumnavigation of the globe by an autonomous underwater vehicle. 

Redwing is a Slocum Sentinel glider, a long-endurance autonomous platform combining low power consumption, high endurance, and flexible sensor integration. It measured temperature, salinity, and detected marine animals tagged with acoustic sources.

The project, led by Teledyne Webb Research in collaboration with Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership and the US Integrated Ocean Observing System, and supported by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, aimed to demonstrate how autonomous technologies can transform global ocean observing. 

Like thousands of ocean observing platforms, Redwing contributes to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), a network of nearly 9,000 instruments operated by 64 countries, delivering essential data for weather forecasting, climate research, ocean health monitoring, and operational ocean services worldwide. 

“Throughout its journey, Redwing collected key oceanographic data in some of the most remote and under-sampled regions of the world, contributing to a better understanding and preservation of the ocean - a central objective of the Sentinel Mission”, says Shea Quinn, Mission Project Lead at Teledyne.  

For weeks, the mission progressed smoothly across the Atlantic before, three months in, the situation changed.

“On 16 January, I received an abort alert,” says Cordie Goodrich, operational lead and pilot. “Redwing had surfaced unexpectedly and was unable to dive again.”

Data analysis suggested a sudden movement at depth, possibly linked to an interaction with a large marine animal that damaged the buoyancy system. While gliders are slow and non-invasive, such rare encounters can affect operations without harming marine life.

For four months, Redwing drifted across the Atlantic. Rutgers students - who had spent three years preparing for the mission - worked with modellers from Mercator Ocean International to refine drift forecasts as the glider moved between the central Atlantic and the Azores.

Meanwhile, the Sentinel Mission team mobilised the GOOS community in search of a recovery opportunity. The request reached Brian King at the National Oceanography Centre, who relayed it on 18 May to OceanOPS, the operational centre supporting GOOS.

OceanOPS experts quickly identified a recovery opportunity.

“The breakthrough came from a rather unconventional opportunity,” says Martin Kramp, OceanOPS Technical Coordinator. “The sailing research vessel Malizia Explorer was passing close to the glider while returning from Antarctica to its European home port and on a scientific expedition with the Nas Marés initiative.”

He contacted Boris Herrmann, skipper of Team Malizia and long-time OceanOPS partner and within a few hours, Malizia Explorer diverted course toward the approximate location of the glider. 

“This operation reflects the mission of Malizia Explorer: a low-carbon vessel supporting science in remote regions and responding to unexpected situations,” says Boris Herrmann. “After deploying drifting buoys and Argo floats for years from onboard our racing boat, contributing to a glider recovery with our sailing research vessel is an exciting new step.”

A coordinated recovery quickly formed between the Malizia Explorer crew, OceanOPS, and Teledyne pilots. Using satellite data and drift forecasts, Redwing was successfully recovered on 19 May 2026, much to the delight of everyone involved.

After four months at sea, it returned onboard with minor damage and a heavy covering of mussels, temporarily becoming a drifting ecosystem.

“The story does not end with the recovery,” says Mariarita Caracciolo, OceanGliders Technical Coordinator at OceanOPS. “As Malizia Explorer has now arrived in her home port Lorient, Redwing will be transferred to Brest, where a technical team will inspect, repair, and test the vehicle at Ifremer’s world-class oceanographic facilities.”

Once restored, the glider will be redeployed near the interruption point, with OceanOPS coordinating logistics. Two research vessels are already identified for redeployment toward the Azores region, before continuing its global route to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, the Caribbean, and back to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Beyond the technical success, the recovery highlights the power of international coordination across Ocean science - linking students, scientists, industry, observing networks, modelling teams, and navigators. It also reflects the growing role of autonomous systems in Ocean observing, providing long-term, low-impact data essential for understanding climate, circulation, ecosystems, and biodiversity.

“Redwing’s recovery shows that the future of Ocean observing is not only about technology, but about the global community behind it,” says Joe Gradone, Assistant Research Professor at Rutgers University. “That coordination to keep the mission alive is itself an innovation.”

As Ocean observing evolves, this mission demonstrates both technological resilience and the strength of global collaboration. Redwing will soon return to the Ocean to continue its extraordinary journey across the world’s seas.

The recovery of Redwing was so successful and such a smooth example of international teamwork that, while still on passage across the Atlantic toward Lorient, the Malizia Explorer crew, together with the Nas Marés team onboard and OceanOPS coordinators ashore, went on to recover a second ocean observing instrument, an Ifremer float, on 28 May 2026.