Love these guys, an impressive piece of kit with a short but amazing pedigree. They run an annual competition to come up with the most innovative idea to use a Saildrone, and they will provide one free of charge for a set period of time to help you test the theory.
i nominated the Syd to Hobart, the idea was to have three sailing ahead of the fleet providing real time wind data to the fleet.
you needed three to cover the spread of the fleet, too much speed discrepancy to do it with one.