Hey Guys,
Brophy’s back with another report from The U-Dub in sunny Seattle! Since my last blog, I’ve been doing a verity of tasks. To start out with, I was assigned to outfitting the CTD on the Thompson with new lanyards. The lanyards on the CTD are the links that connect the closable ends of the Niskin water collection bottles to the electromagnetic triggering mechanism on the Rosette which the bottles are mounted on. So in short, when the CTD is at a desired depth within the water column, the operater can hit a “fire” button on a computer and a signal is sent to the triggering mechanism via an armored conducting wire cable. The signal releases the trigger which inturn releases the lanyard and the bottle closes, and vuala, the water in trapped in the bottle at that depth.
The following day was spent reterminating the electromagnetc wire cable on the R/V Barnes, UW’s smaller research boat,that is awesome!! This was quite a task that has to be done slowly and carefully for a beginner like me. The cable has two wraps of steel wire strands, one with a right hand lay and the other a left hand lay. These two wraps must be peeled back to where the termination will take place on the wire. From their a kind of “squirrels nest” is created with the peeled back strands small enough to fit the inside diameter of the stainless steel connecter. Once the squirrels nest of wire is fitted inside the connector, we poured a type of meltable metal alloy called Serro-bend inside the connector the secure everything in place. The following day was spent running SVGA cable through the Thompson and mounting flatscreen computer moniters in various labs. This happened without a hitch, with my years in the electrical field serving me well.
The next three days where spend on the R/V Barnes out in the Puget Sound. Doing two trips a day, taking students of UW out for exposure to science operations on the water. I had a blast for these three days on that little ole tug!!! The weather was warm and clear for the most part, with mount Rainier on one side behind Seattle and the Olympic mountains on the other. Jim my mentor, Bob the Captain and Greg the mate are great guys and I truly enjoyed my time on that boat!!! During these trips I handled lines along side Greg as we went through the locks and while docking and undocking, with Greg on the bow and myself on the stern. During science operations I assisted Jim in showing the students how the operate the equipment before, during and after their deployments. While on the topic of scientific equipment, lets talk about what we did. To start out, we would to a CTD cast, usaully in about 180m of water. After that, we switched the wire on the winch from the EM cable used for the CTD to normal wire cable. This cable was then attached to a plankton net which the students used to collect phytoplankton. After the net tow, we switched to the Van Veen grab. This is a bottom grab device used to collect sediment from the bottom in an 8in x 14in area. Once collected, the sediment is sifted through using a water hose to see what was caught. Then, it was off the change the group of students for a new group. The same eqiupment was used again, but in opposite order. Overall it has been a great week here at The University of Washington, well until next time, Chow!