Week two of my MATE Internship has been awesome. After getting underway on Monday, we headed off to Port Angeles again to do some troubleshooting and more flight operations. While we were by Port Angeles I spent some time finishing my wiring diagram for a panel. After spending several days by Port Angeles we headed offshore to conduct winch testing and the multibeam patch test. We first tested the trawl winch with 2000lbs of weight and lowered it down to 1000 meters to verify everything works. We then calibrated the payout sensor. After successfully completing the test weights we then deployed the CTD for training and system testing. We originally planned to send the CTD down to 2300m, but during the cast we lost connection at 800m. We tried to troubleshoot the system while the CTD was in the water but it was not successful so we hauled the CTD back onto the deck so we could figure out what happened. While the CTD was being hauled up from 800m the connection was restored at 200m. After we finished with the CTD test we began the Patch test. We got everything in order so that when we arrived at the coordinates that we had planned so we would be ready to go. Once we arrived after about five minutes the system shut off and we stopped receiving data from the sonar. We ran downstairs to troubleshoot the system and after about fifteen minutes we were successful. After making two attempts we called off the test because the cross swells were between twelve to fifteen feet. As a result of the rolls the multibeam was not giving us very accurate measurements. We got a head start and departed for Alaska, hopefully we will be able to complete another CTD test and Patch test before we arrive later next week. We are doing several tests while underway to see what the issue is with the CTD. We believe that there is problem in the .322 sea cable itself but need to pay out some wire under load to verify the failure. This has been a very busy two weeks and I’m so excited to share everything I have learned and experienced
