The Saildrone’s carbon fiber sail acts like an aircraft wing. When air passes over it, thrust is created. The sail is stabilized by a counterweight that is placed in front of it and a tab trailing behind it that can automatically make small corrections to make sure it maintains an efficient angle to the wind. Underneath the boat are both a rudder to aid in steering and a keel, which will right the boat if it is knocked over.

The big difference, of course, is that there are no sailors on board. The boats are controlled through communications satellites from the operations center here as they collect oceanographic data and monitor fish stocks and the environment.

One day, they may be used for weather prediction, oil and gas industry ocean operations, or even to police illegal fishing.

Mr. Jenkins has a much grander vision. He believes the missing piece of the puzzle to definitively comprehend the consequences of global warming is scientific data. He envisions a fleet of thousands or even tens of thousands of his 23-foot sailboats creating a web of sensors across the world’s oceans.

Vast amounts of data collected by his robots could reveal with greater detail the extent and rate at which global warming might become an existential threat to humanity and whether it is happening in decades rather than centuries.

That is, if someone is willing to pay for all that. The boats are not sold — the scientists, commercial fisherman and weather predictors pay a $2,500-a-day fee per boat for the data they produce.

Image Richard Jenkins uses a smartphone to plug in coordinates and communicate with the drone. Credit... Jason Henry for The New York Times

Saildrone got its start with $2.5 million in grants from Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, and his wife, Wendy Schmidt. And Mr. Jenkins’s company recently received $14 million in financing from three socially minded venture capital firms: Social Capital, Lux and Capricorn.