Today was our last work day on the first leg of Pioneer 17.\u00a0 The recovery of the Inshore Surface Mooring was first on the agenda. Recovery starts when an acoustic command is sent from the ship causing the anchor to be released from the multi-function node (MFN), which houses it. Sometimes even though the release is activated, the mooring stays in place.\u00a0 This happened during the recovery of the Central Surface Mooring.\u00a0 In that case, we can hook the buoy and give it a bit of a tug, releasing it from its anchor.\u00a0 That is what we did successfully for the Central Surface Mooring.<\/p>\n

The Inshore Surface Mooring had a similar issue.\u00a0 After sending multiple release commands, the mooring remained anchored to the seafloor.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$

The Inshore Surface Buoy was brought to the starboard side of the ship, where members of the team secured it with a titanium hook, then guided it back to the stern of the ship.<\/p><\/div>\n

The captain then tried to release the anchor by pulling the buoy back over the anchor position to give it a nudge.\u00a0 This proved to be unsuccessful in dislodging the mooring from the anchor.\u00a0 Luckily, we have a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) onboard that gave us eyes underwater.\u00a0 It was deployed and sent to the site of the MFN that encompasses the anchor to try to see what, if anything, might be keeping the MFN and the anchor on the seafloor.<\/p>\n

The ROV found the MFN and did multiple surveillance rounds around it.\u00a0 All looked in order, with no obvious problem. \u00a0Because of the rough sea conditions, the decision was made to leave the Inshore Surface Mooring in place for the time being.\u00a0 A second attempt will be made during Leg 2 to recover the mooring with the assistance of the ROV if favorable weather and sea conditions allow.\u00a0 The goal of Leg 2 is the deployment of six Profiler Moorings and recovery of five Profiler Moorings.\u00a0 If the Inshore Surface Mooring is successfully recovered on Leg 2, there might not be room on deck to recover all of the Profiler Moorings.\u00a0 Those recoveries have been prioritized and decisions regarding what can be recovered and when will depend upon weather, sea conditions, and time available.\u00a0 This conundrum is an example of when the vagaries of weather, waves, and equipment dictate decisions at sea.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$

The Pioneer 17 team prepares the Remotely Operated Vehicle for a reconnaissance mission on the seafloor to determine why the Inshore Surface Mooring failed to release from the anchor.<\/p><\/div>\n

Around mid-day, the R\/V Neil Armstrong\u00a0<\/em>left the area of the Inshore Surface Mooring to steam across the shelf to recover the AUV \u201cScotland\u201d from its 24-hour mission.\u00a0 The swells were high, but in tribute to the experience of the crew, the AUV was hooked and successfully recovered. After \u201cScotland\u201d was onboard, we transited back across the shelf to pick up the AUV \u201cRogers\u201d before heading back to Woods Hole.\u00a0 At each AUV deployment and recovery location, a CTD cast was conducted to collect water samples to validate the instrument readings.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$
The AUV \u201cScotland\u201d was the first AUV to be brought back onboard. It was hooked in 10\u201312-foot rolling swells.<\/p><\/div>\n
Images and Text by Darlene Trew Crist\u00a9WHOI.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was our last work day on the first leg of Pioneer 17.\u00a0 The recovery of the Inshore Surface Mooring was first on the agenda. Recovery starts when an acoustic command is sent from the ship causing the anchor to be released from the multi-function node (MFN), which houses it. Sometimes even though the release…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":530995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[72,19],"tags":[39,28,27,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530994"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531069,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530994\/revisions\/531069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/site\/ooi-expedition\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}