Blue Ocean Gear, a California-based small business, is a company the develops and sells Smart Buoys – intelligent, connected fishing buoys that allow users to track the exact location and movement of their fishing gear.
Lost gear is a major financial and environmental problem. Economically, “lost fishing gear represents a direct economic loss to fishers” and “‘ghost fishing’ reduces commercially valuable fish stocks, leading to lower catches and reduced revenue for the entire industry,” according to the ESG Sustainability Directory. On the environmental side, a 2020 publication by the World Wildlife Fund named lost fishing gear, or ‘ghost gear’ the “most harmful form of plastic debris to marine wildlife.”
Smart Buoys form part of an answer to the ghost gear problem. And in 2022, NOAA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program funded Blue Ocean Gear’s development of an updated Smart Buoy that would both add ocean sensors to the existing Smart Buoys and make them better able to withstand the open ocean.
Once deployed in ocean environments, the updated Smart Buoys would collect data that would not only prevent the financial and animal cost of more ‘ghost gear.’ It would also allow fishermen to review information from previous seasons and inform decision-making by helping them to identify and avoid “hot spots” that are likely to have conflict with other vessels or challenging currents or other ocean conditions.
The buoys are an innovative solution that combines traditional fishing markers with today’s real-time connectivity. The Smart Buoy is equipped with an automatic sensor that turns it on the moment it meets the water, and its PlotterLink transceiver allows it to connect to plotters, phones, and PCs without any additional onboard internet. Blue Ocean Gear’s Smart Charger can charge the buoys onboard, and the battery lasts up to six months between charges, depending on how it’s used.
In today’s data-driven world, the data collection of the Smart Buoy is particularly important to fishermen and environmentalists alike. Currently, the Smart Buoy collects latitude and longitude coordinates, distance travelled, velocity, ambient water temperature, and acceleration. This allows Blue Ocean Gear to assemble a robust repository of ocean water temperature and currents, which is also of interest to industries like ocean-based wind energy and shipping. However, third parties cannot see an individual’s data without permission, except when used on an anonymized, aggregated basis.
The NOAA SBIR investment in the Blue Ocean Gear Smart Buoy is already paying dividends for American fisheries. One ship captain (quoted on the Blue Ocean Gear website) noted that “[o]n a big day, Smart Buoys save me 5 hours,” and another said that “[k]nowing exactly when and where my buoy resurfaces saves me $5,000 per trip.” Being able to track the Smart Buoy’s position also helps ships navigate inclement weather, with one fisherman telling Blue Ocean Gear, “Last trip, I was in an incredible fog, but was able to harvest my gear like it was a sunny day.”
NOAA’s SBIR support has played a big role in the Smart Buoy’s success. According to Blue Ocean Gear CEO Kortney Opshaug, “[t]he NOAA SBIR program supported Blue Ocean Gear’s efforts to successfully bring our technology from the design and test phase into production and commercialization. As a small business, the opportunity to connect and work with different branches of NOAA was immensely valuable in providing feedback that led to a more versatile design as a direct result. Our SBIR projects not only led to an extended contract with NOAA, but also contributed to forming an ongoing partnership that has helped us continuously innovate and improve as an organization as we scale.”
The NOAA SBIR program is a federal grant program that funds small business research and development within NOAA’s mission areas, with the end goal of developing innovative and commercially viable products and services. By investing in American small business innovation, the SBIR program drives the economic development, business growth, and scientific and technological advancement that positions the U.S. as technology leaders and spurs continuous economic growth.