MONDAY, 03.23.09

0811: Response To Ted Waitt
Well, the noise and faulty ground was more a technical/design flaw, although it does sound like this was a known issue that should have been checked previous to now. In this respect you are correct: it should have been caught before now. We just recovered Mary Ann, so we’ll see if it fixed her noise issue.

The other, the sliced cable, is definitely an operator error. They broke it and did not know they broke it, but there was a clear symptom: three times over the last 40 days, the vehicle slipped into ‘dive-down’ mode when on the surface. The first time it happened, we really did not know why and it did not get a lot of play. The vehicle was way aft of the ship and did not close distance. We were not really positive that the prop was turning, but we know the vehicle dove about five feet. It cleared in the water and we launched as planned. It seemed like kind of a fluke and we had a lot of other problems come up in fast succession behind it, so it literally fell off the radar. Plus it went away.

Then a week ago or so it happened again, but much closer to the ship and was a LOT scarier. It ran right up behind us and just got sucked back out of the water. That happened again the other day. After the incident a week ago, this should have been hunted down more thoroughly, but I think what happened is it got misdiagnosed. I believe they replaced the descent weight solenoid and thought this took care of it. When it happened again, they knew it was still a problem and found this cable. The real error was them banging around in there and breaking it in the first place.

We do have numbers on these things because Greg Packard keeps a maintenance log. We are in the midst of endgame planning for Leg 1, but during transit back in I will have them all working on reports: spares consumed and existing inventory (both spares and consumables), along with statistical breakdowns and a report for each mission.

1050: To Ted Waitt, Update
I’m not caught up on Lee Frey’s report, but here’s the latest on the girls. Ginger is still chiming away, no issues. Yesterday when Mary Ann came up, her navigation data was not embedded in the sonar data. We have the data, but it’s separate. We hope we will be able to re-integrate it, so we did not re-survey that box. We agreed to send her to the next box. I’m not yet clear on how or why this happened, and the crew doesn’t seem to be either. We think it’s a com port error that went away when they recycled power. It clearly seems to be a software issue. There was no margin in further testing and it was late in the evening on the East Coast, so we weren’t gonna get anything helpful from them. There was no smoking gun, so we went forward.

We do have another operator error. Yesterday when they programmed Mary Ann’s current search, they went through the protocol for double checking their work (instituted to catch this very kind of problem), but did not see the vehicle would pass within 15 meters of a Deep Ocean Transponder (DOT). Greg explained this morning that when Mary Ann gets to the end of lane four of her current run, she will pass uncomfortably close to that DOT. So, to ensure we do not entangle, I gave Greg permission to abort the run near the end of that leg. It’s the right call and the safe call, but it precipitated yet another discussion between Greg and me about diligence and double checking, and the need for us to do a meticulous ‘after-action’ report on every mission to make sure we take all our lessons forward. She’ll be on her way up in a couple hours, just turning onto leg four now.

1643: Day 35 & 36 (March 22 & 23)
When last we spoke, both vehicles were on the surface at noon on the 21st and prepping for launch. A new ground connection was made in Mary Ann’s sonar power board and she had a cable spliced in her descent weight assembly. Ginger has been working along with the last of the 75/410 transducers aboard and needed no significant maintenance. Mary Ann was launched at 1324 to survey box 14-15a and Ginger was launched at 1635 to work in boxes 15-16b.

It was a Saturday night so we celebrated our weekly indulgence of steak with our own at-sea barbecue. GB (Gerard Bilquin) gets a big pile of coals going on a grill on the back deck, lays out the fixings to dress and cook your own New York strip steak and does up a batch of baked potatoes. It’s a nice break and always a little touch of home. The camaraderie is up a bit from normal, the night guys often make a point of being awake for it and everybody’s spirits rise. Not much else worthy of note took place, although it should be pointed out that if you like your steak rare, Stephani Gordon (our Producer/Videographer) is probably not the person you want cooking your meat. I’m not sure if she walked away from it, forgot it or what, but it resembled nothing more than a piece of charcoal. She took a couple bites and a fair amount of good-natured joshing from her shipmates.

The night passed uneventfully, we recovered one DOT and laid no more in the water as the time is approaching for the end of Leg 1. That’s right folks, we are about to wrap up the first part of this operation. In a few days, we will bring all of our gear aboard and begin our transit to Pago Pago to refuel, re-provision, and pick up some crew replacements. A fair number of the ship’s crew will be leaving us, along with about half of the Woods Hole team, to be replaced by personnel from their respective institutions. Spirits are rising, even amongst those of us who will stay. A couple days on the beach will do better than nothing.

Too Much Time at Sea?

Keeping each other entertained…

Yesterday, March 22nd, we had two recoveries planned. As our time grows short, we want to make sure we have all of our bases covered when it comes to the expertise still available to us on this Leg. The film crew on board has been fantastic to work with; they are very easy going and their presence has only been noticed as they manifest themselves as boon companions. When they’re filming, they mostly stay well out of everyone’s way. During those times when we have to do something, they are professional and extremely easy going. We’ll be sad to see them leave.

As we draw things to a close on Leg 1, we are making our lists and checking them twice: one glaring open spot is photographs of the AUV in the water. Joe Lepore headed up the plan. We splashed one of our skiffs in the water and had the photographers head out in front of the ship to film a vehicle recovery. When the vehicle came to the surface a thousand yards in front of the ship, Stephani and Ian Kellett (our Director of Photography) jumped in the water and started clicking and filming away. By the time the ship pulled alongside, they’d taken some good footage and pictures before pulling back while the deck crew fired the grappling hook and recovered Mary Ann. The recovery went off without a hitch.

There was a slight issue when we retrieved the skiff because the seas were fairly rough. So when the three point lifting harness came taut, it caught under the steering console and did some damage. This was repaired, but there is now a pretty good-sized hole in that column and a slow leak of hydraulic steering fluid. The ship is gathering parts for a full repair to be hand-carried out to the ship during the change-over.

When we looked at Mary Ann’s data, we found a problem. Although the noise issue cleared in response to the new ground on the power board, we now had an issue with the navigation data that is normally embedded in the sonar record — it wasn’t there. We had navigation info in other vehicle files, but not in the sonar data. We anticipate being able to mate them up eventually, and are confident the vehicle completed its mission as planned. There were no targets in the record, so we decided to have her survey the next box. As to the cause of the problem, we think it is a software/port issue with the data communication system since it went away when the vehicle power was recycled (akin to a hard reboot). It was a mystery problem we couldn’t replicate and that we fervently hope was a glitch.

While we were troubleshooting this issue, Ginger was also recovered. Again, we had two vehicles on the surface. We quickly re-launched Mary Ann again to survey 14/15a at 1835, and Ginger went back to work in box 16b. Nothing glaring was found in either record.

Another uneventful evening passed, but the next morning Greg Packard and I conferred on a pretty serious issue with Ginger’s survey. The team, when they wrote and double-checked her mission, failed to notice that on leg 4 of her survey she would pass within 14 meters of a deployed DOT. As you may recall, DOTs stream from the sea floor via a 300-foot line running from the bottom of the DOT attached to a 180-pound anchor. We couldn’t take the chance that Ginger might suffer a navigation correction in this area and become entangled in the DOT anchor line. This would hold her down indefinitely and that’s an unacceptable risk.

Greg and I agreed to abort Ginger’s mission when it reached the end of this line. We will double-check the navs, re-plot her course to give the DOT a 250-meter berth and re-launch her. We are also going to get our film crew wet again during the next recovery and launch. All else goes well. As I mentioned, everyone is excited to be getting a break, with only a few more days on site until we transit. I will try to get back to you tomorrow. I’ve been writing every other day, but I want to catch the vibes as we close out the first Leg. Cheers.