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Deep-Sea Rescue of Valuable Research Instruments
Northwest Enhanced Moored Observatory – NEMO
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Who, Where, What?
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Three engineers from the APL-UW's Ocean Engineering Department – Eric Boget, Tim McGinnis, and Zoë Parsons – and John Mickett from the Ocean Physics Department were underway on UW’s R/V Thomas G. Thompson off the Washington coast in mid-January to recover two moorings that are part of the NANOOS Northwest Enhanced Moored Observatory (NEMO).
Moorings, both those with surface expressions and those with all instruments deep in the water column, are equipped with acoustic releases that set the chain of instruments and floats free from the weights on the bottom. For the subsurface mooring, the primary AND back-up remote acoustic releases failed, likely due to heavy corrosion of release parts by seawater.
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Rescue Mission
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NEMO Schematic
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More About this Research
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To free the mooring the team used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) equipped with a grab hook and a recovery line. With Tim McGinnis as pilot, Eric Boget and Zoë Parsons running deck
operations, and John Mickett working with the bridge to correctly position the Thompson, the team was able to find the subsurface mooring using sonar mounted on the ROV. Then the ROV was flown into position to hook into the mooring just above the anchor at about 100 m below the surface. Though the target was small (a link of the mooring chain) and the ROV was hindered by the drag of its umbilical and
buffeted by currents, McGinnis was able to hit the mark after several missed attempts and much suspense.
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The three components of the Washington coastal observatory.
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Northwest Enhanced Mooring Observatory
NEMO consists of a heavily instrumented real time surface mooring, a real time subsurface profiling mooring, and a Seaglider to collect spatial information. Combined, their measurements will improve understanding of the complex physical, chemical, and biological processes on the largely unsampled Washington shelf. |
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Mooring Rescue Photo Gallery
Picasa site devoted to the January 2013 mission off the Washington coast. |
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