10/02/2026
Tiny boat energy is off the charts at Saint Anselm! 🤏🛳️📈
The Saint Anselm College Biology Department unveiled their two new research vessels during a delightfully quirky christening ceremony outside Alumni Hall. Little test tubes were smashed instead of ch*****ne bottles. 🧪🍾 Mini glow-in-the-dark ducks were figureheads on the bows. And the boats were blessed by Abbot Mark Cooper, O.S.B. '71 with “godmothers” Dr. Sheila Liotta and Karen Boivin presiding over the whole affair.
Wearing a classic yellow sou'wester hat, Professor Shannon O’Leary acted as emcee, chanting “May they float” while inviting the gathered guests of students, faculty, staff and monks to shout back, “May they stay upright!” 😆
They may be small, but these vessels have a key research mission. O’Leary and students in the “Intro to Environmental Science” course are seeking to determine how much plastic is drifting through local waterways, and where it is coming from. They’ll use these two remote-controlled bait boats with a trawl made out of baby tights to collect microplastics from local urban ponds and streams as part of their studies.
Of course, no dedication like this is complete without fun names. They got more than 40 submissions from community members and landed on the RV Gertrude (Garment-Engineered Remote Trawler for Riverine Urban Debris Evaluation) and RV Mabel (Mini-Automated Boat with Environmental Love).
“Different questions, different methods, and one shared spirit of creativity and ingenuity,” O’Leary declared to the smiling crowd. “Today, that spirit sets sail, in a fleet of two.”
