Month: May 2015

In the past week, the R/V Sharp has transitioned from Leg 1 of the scallop survey to Leg 2. While Leg 1 almost entirely used the Habcam (as pictured above), Leg 2 and Leg 3 are a hybrid of dredging and Habcaming. As such, the last days of Leg 1 were spent with the Habcam in the water. We pulled the Habcam from the water on Sunday so we could steam back and make Monday’s 3 pm high tide in Lewes. We were doing well for fuel so we started up the third power generator, thus increasing our speed. The Captain wanted a large cushion time for arrival since he did not know how bad boat traffic would be on Memorial Day. We arrived at Lewes before the tide was high enough to let us in so we had to lurk outside for roughly 30 minutes before moving in. It was pretty funny to see all the Memorial Day weekenders out on the beach staring and taking pictures at us. We spent two nights docked in Lewes cleaning the ship for the next leg and changing out the crew and scientists. Of the original twenty of us, only three (myself included) would be staying for Leg 2. Most of my time was spent helping prep the ship by vacuuming, taking out the trash, and changing the linens. The crew wanted to take advantage of being on land so the workday would end in the afternoon. I spent my free time wandering around Lewes and enjoying the nice weather.

All too soon, Wednesday at 4 am we left dock. Since I was rooming with a volunteer scientist, I had to be put on the science watch schedule. My watch changed from 6 am to 6 pm to midnight to noon. Adjusting to new times had been difficult and I have been experiencing seasickness despite the nice weather. However luckily, both Wednesday and today there was minimal work for techs and I have been able to work on recuperating. There was some Habcaming done but the real work, dredging, begins this afternoon while I sleep. I will be kept very busy with the dredging schedule for the rest of the leg.

Here’s to fair weather and yummy scallops!

Maia

RV Langseth: First few days on the boat

By Tyler Hackett

On May 27, 2015

In Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Marcus G. Langseth

I decided to delay my second blog post because of the lack of news. I arrived in New York yesterday and made it to the boat just in time for dinner. The guys I’m working with have been showing me how things are done around here and explaining a little bit more in depth of what we will be doing. I had some down time to explore the ship and start to figure out where everything is. This morning another tech and I checked out the birds that will go onto the streamer to make sure the program had the correct serial numbers to be able to communicate back and forth. After the morning everything slowed down a little bit while we were waiting for other people to arrive. I also helped to replace a UPS(Uninterruptible Power Supply) to keep the electronics running in the event that we lose power. Tomorrow will be busy because we will be spooling the P-cable that we will be towing.

I found out that we will not be leaving port until Monday, which will give me time to get anything I may need while out at sea. The cruise plan is to complete a survey of an area approximately 20 miles off of the Barnegat Inlet in New Jersey to about 150 miles offshore. I was also informed that I will be working the day shift which is from 12 noon to Midnight while we are sailing. In the next few days as we prepare to leave I will be trying to get onto this schedule and I will make another post later on in the week as I get more involved and learn more about what we will be doing.

-Tyler

Pre-Internship Hello

By Amber Batts

On May 22, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

Hello!

My name is Amber Batts. I’m a recent graduate from the Marine Technology program at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, NC. I’ve been working towards this opportunity since my first semester at CFCC in August of 2013 so I couldn’t be more honored and proud of being selected for this internship! I hope I represent the Marine Tech program well.

I’m simultaneously in the process of moving out of my apartment the same week I’m scheduled to leave for Delaware; so I’m anxious and excited (slightly nervous) about the next several months. But if anyone is familiar with the program at CFCC, then you know we have all been trained to keep our cool under pressure; thank you Mark Miller 🙂

I do love to photo document everything so I look forward to sharing my learning experiences aboard the Sharp!

Amber Batts

Week #1: Settling In

By Maia Garcia

On May 21, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

The first week on board the R/V Hugh R. Sharp has gone well! I was picked up at the tiny Salisbury airport by KG, one of the technicians that will be on the second and third leg of the survey, and his visiting friend. They drove me from Salisbury, Maryland to Lewes, Delaware. Along the way we had lunch at a local diner and bought some heavy-duty foul weather gear, including a pair of rubber steel-toed boots. Sharp was docked next to another vessel and an associated administration building. The building had offices as well as workshop space to maintain the ship. I was given a tour of the Sharp and was introduced the crew. Afterwards I was given time to unpack, grab dinner in downtown Lewes, and have an early night to recover from my 5 am flight. Tina moved in that night as well. She’s an independent contractor technician that is with us for night watch of the first leg. On the second day, we started work at 7 am and I mostly followed Max around, the technician that will be on all three legs of the scallop survey. The ship was already prepped and ready on the tech side of things so I mostly watched the scientists ready the fiber optics cable, learned my way around the ship, and learned the daily duties aboard the ship. We had lunch on the ship and the crew went home about 3 pm to pack and get ready for the upcoming cruise. I had dinner again in Lewes. It’s a nice mile or so walk into downtown from where we were docked.

The next day, everybody was loaded up and we set to sea. During the day we test deployed the Habcam, the CTD, and the dredge. The Habcam is a giant apparatus that has cameras and various other equipment attached to a frame. It is dragged behind the ship just above the sea floor and it takes pictures of the sea floor, including scallops. The dredge on the other hand scrapes the sea floor, collecting everything there, and dumps out the haul on a massive metal table to be sorted through by the scientists. The scientists are transitioning over using the Habcam more than the dredge to lessen their environmental impact. Another vessel is dredging the same area as us so the first leg uses only the Habcam while the second and third legs will alternate between them. However sometime during the test deployment, one of the main power connectors to the ‘brain’ of the Habcam flooded from an imperfect connection. We went back into Lewes that night as it was unclear whether the Habcam’s ‘brain’ would work once dried out. We docked for a couple of hours until it we found out from science that the Habcam is fully functioning. We headed back to sea and continued on track.

In the following days, I’ve fallen into a routine. Watch is from 6 am to 6 pm with breakfast at 5:30 am, lunch at 11:30, and dinner at 5:30 pm. I spend most of my time in the bridge with the rest of the crew that’s on watch. I have been reading (finished 4 books so far) and chatting with the crew. Everyone is very friendly and science will enthusiastically talk about what they’re currently working on. The Habcam does not require anything from the techs so days can be slow. There have been some equipment issues that keep us on our toes but other than that, we only have to do a daily check on the systems. The daily check includes cleaning a filter, washing down the CTD, and double-checking that the weather readouts are accurate. All in total, it only takes 20 minutes or so. Today, we tested the dredge again and got some sea stars, sand dollars, fish, crabs, and scallops. During a dredge, Max and I are in charge of attaching the dredge to the winch and assisting getting the dredge back on board. We have to shovel the catch into piles so that the scientist can sort it and wash everything down once finished. All in all, I’d say that things have gone well. The weather has been calm and the trip has been fascinating. See you next week!

– Maia

From parts to product

By Sonia Brugger

On May 20, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, Oregon State University, CEOAS, R/V Oceanus

During my 6-month internship I will be working on rebuilding a MacArtney Trixaxus. I am absolutly thrilled to have the oppertunity to help my ship regain an extremely useful piece of equipment, however I am also somewhat terrified as all of those boxes contain random parts, cables, and electronics that I don’t quite undersatnd at this point.

The above image was taken on the R/V Point Sur and stolen from Wikipedia.

As for what a Triaxus is….I’ll leave the description to the MacArtney website article:

“ Adding a new dimension to towed vehicles, the TRIAXUS is the natural step forward from the existing 2D towed vehicle technology to a true 3D towfish. The TRIAXUS uses state of the art computer technology and fibre optic telemetry for vehicle and sensor communication.

The TRIAXUS features flaps for vertical as well as lateral control. A powerful industrial PC controls the vehicle based on input from the onboard vehicle control sensors according to the preprogrammed flight path.

The TRIAXUS is developed for high-speed oceanographic data acquisition work, and is designed to undulate between 1 and 350 metres*. Lateral offsets of up to 80 metres to either side of the ship is possible, enabling the vertical profiling to be carried out in an undisturbed water column.

Towing speed* between 1 and 10 knots and vertical speed* of up to 1 metre per second are possible. The TRIAXUS has been designed using the latest carbon fibre moulding technologies and the Danish Maritime Institute (DMI) has supplied the hydrodynamic design. The embedded telemetry system is based on the successful NEXUS fibre optic multiplexer system, allowing interface of up to 9 additional sensor packages using the Plug and Play principle.”

RV Langseth: Getting ready to go

By Tyler Hackett

On May 19, 2015

In Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Marcus G. Langseth

Hello everyone,

My name is Tyler Hackett and I have been choosen to be the MATE intern aboard the RV Langseth. I am currently a senior in Ocean Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology. My main focus within the field of Ocean Engineering is Marine Technology which includes Remotely Operated Vehicles, Instrumentation, and sub-sea technologies. My senior design project that was completed last year invloved a mechanical and electrical overhaul of ROSCo (Remotely operated sea crawler).

I am very excited to have this opportunity to spend time at sea doing research that I have a passion for. I have already started packing for my departure next tuesday. While on board the Langseth we will be testing and using several different types of marine instruments. Some of the instruments that will be used include ADCP (Acoustic doppler current profiler), 3D Siesmic scanners, 2D seismic scanners, gravimeters, and magnetometers. Throughout my internship I will be going more into depth on how each of these instruments work and the data that can be obtained from them.

Adios San Diego, Hola Portland! What we do while in transit …

By Pamela Ward

On May 15, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Thomas G. Thompson, University of Washington, School of Oceanography

During our stop in San Diego, many things on the ship changed. We disembarked the science techs and all their gear, which I must say makes the ship look so much bigger, garnered provisions and got the ship’s winch back. The secondary marine techs were switched out and once under sail, we fired-up all that data acquiring equipment that we run and maintain as SOP (standard operating procedure). So now what? Today has been a day like any other while in transit. We made work lists and knocked out the items on the list. For example, we removed sensors from the CTD that are due for calibration, replacing them with ones from the ship stores, ordering replacements for the store from shore to be brought with the oncoming tech and updating all the logs that pertain to that activity. We trained on CTD terminations, so in the event there is a problem during operations, we will be prepared to make that happen efficiently. We spend our day ensuring that all the details that make operations efficient and smooth are addressed before the heat is turned up. We prepare. We anticipate. We pay close attention to the details, so the details don’t come back to haunt us at a critical moment. In addition, as we are headed for dry dock we have to coordinate with the engineers that power requirements are meet as we have certain equipment that needs to remain online no matter what state the ship is in. And, for me personally, it’s time to start tidying up my internship and personal details, like this final blog and laundry. The party’s over, so turn the lights out. Adios, Thomas G. Thompson.

Pre-Internship Excitement

By Maia Garcia

On May 13, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

Hello!

Tomorrrow is the big day, the day I start my internship aboard the R/V Sharp! It has been a whrilwind few weeks with the end of finals and packing but it has been worth it. I am honored that I was selected for this opportunity and am so excited for it. I want to thank Nandita for all her help in getting ready and making sure all the paper work is in order.

See you next week,

Maia

Reflections

By Pamela Ward

On May 8, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Thomas G. Thompson, University of Washington, School of Oceanography

Since joining the vessel, I have learned how to cast a CTD, deploy ARGO floats and drifters, and what the processes entail to launch and recover TAO buoys; and those lessons, were mostly closely associated with the maintenance aspects specific to this expedition. However, those maintenance tasks were the easier part for me to absorb as I am not a novice sailor, nor do I lack mechanical skills. I also learned a lot about how to operate a plethora of electronic equipment that allows us to collect meteorological and oceanographic data; these are the ones I feared the most and all the while being fully aware that these are the bread and butter of a marine tech’s job description. Working as a marine tech is a lot as I anticipated and really stretched the limits of my knowledge base. See, the one aspect of the internship that gave me the most cause for pause, even while I was applying for the position, was knowing that the depth of my computer skills would be my Achilles; and, it has been. Yet, I have strengthened that weak spot and overcome some of the hesitation that is hallmark to such inadequacies. The picture I’ve chosen to accompany this article is a collage of all the different equipment that minimally, I have learned how to operate and maintain, and some, I have even learned how to troubleshoot and repair. From the multibeam that sends signals to the ocean floor for mapping, to maintaining our internet for communications to shore, which is so important professionally (and for a happy crew), to the SCS (Scientific Computer Systems) which monitors and logs no less than 168 sensors (at the moment), I can walk into the computer lab, and know when something is amiss, what that something is, why and how it is monitoring, how critical it is to operations and sometimes, EXACTLY what to do to fix it! Take that Achilles!

Best laid plans …

By Pamela Ward

On May 1, 2015

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Thomas G. Thompson, University of Washington, School of Oceanography

The dynamic fashion of the marine environment makes the idea of placing something like a grid (or a buoy) in a spot and expecting it to be there the next day, let alone a year later, a special task. The buoy, or what’s left of it in the photo, is just one of the issues we encountered that caused our route and plan to be adjusted. We had set this buoy and did the obligatory checks to ensure it was functioning properly before moving on to out next destination, just to be recalled to it within a day; we had lost all transmissions. In route to another maintenance recovery, we were informed just about a day before scheduled arrival that the buoy had moved 12nmi before losing contact; we didn’t find that one. Add to the fluid nature of the ocean, the corrosive environment and punishing ultra-violence of the sun, it’s little wonder that buoys have been such a reliable source for data at all. For instance, we’ve had to cut the mooring line twice now as the release mechanism did not respond properly to the release code, yet we recovered the buoys and most of the moorings. We cannot say with any certainty why the mechanisms did not release as average depth for these two devices hover around 3500m. The ocean is a world filled with hazards and unknowns. In spite of all these variables and possible derailments, the science team, through triangulation, determined that the last two buoys were located within 3m and 1m respectively of their designated stations, and we have managed to stay on schedule, pretty impressive. I believe these accomplishments speak volumes about the entire team’s ability to communicate, prioritize and function as a unit to fulfill our best laid plan.