John Schneider

July 11, 2009April 5, 2021

John Schneider, July 11, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
John Schneider
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 7 – August 8, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: Kodiak, AK to Dutch Harbor, AK
Date: July 11, 2009

Position
Sheet L – Shumagin Islands

Weather Data from the Bridge
Weather System: Overcast
Barometer: 1021.4
Wind: mild and veering*
Temperature: 12.1º C

Science and Technology Log

One of the Fairweather's launches — One of the Fairweather’s launches

Today I got to go out on launch 1010. The two primary launches on Fairweather are 29-foot diesel-powered (Caterpillar) single-screw aluminum boats. I was real surprised to find that 1010 is 35 years old! It’s in great shape. Survey equipment on board includes the multi-beam echo sounder, computers, DGPS (Digital GPS gives positional accuracy to about 6 inches!) radar, radios and Iridium satellite telephones. For “creature comforts” there’s a microwave and mini-fridge as well as a very efficient heater/defrost system. Oh, by the way, there are no heads on the launches. (FYI – a “head” is marine-speak for a bathroom!)

Here I am on the launch monitoring all the data that’s being collected — Here I am on the launch monitoring all the data

Knowing this in advance, I didn’t have coffee or tea or a big breakfast. Turns out that when “nature calls” the rest of the crew goes in the cabin, closes the door, and you go over the side! Seems gross at first and then you realize that the 30 and 40 ton whales go in the ocean too (besides, it’s biodegradable!) The launches are carried on the boat deck (E-deck) in custom Welin-Lambie davits made for each launch. Welin-Lambie is a company over 100 years old and made the davits for a few ships you may have heard of – the British Royal Yacht Britannia, the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship and oh, yeah, the RMS Titanic! The cradles are self-leveling so when the Fairweather is in heavy seas they remain upright and stable. The picture on the left shows 1010 in its cradle. When it’s time to launch the boat, the securing devices are released, the boat is swung out over the side and two >3 ton winches lower the launch to the rail of D-deck. There it is boarded by the crew and loaded with the needed gear for the day. It is then lowered into the water and sent on its way.

Once we got to the area of our polygon (I’ll explain polygons later in the week) we began acquiring data by “mowing the lawn” – the process of sailing back and forth across a defined area collecting soundings¹ (bottom depths.) In every polygon we conduct a CTD cast (CTD = Conductivity Temperature Density.) These three parameters determine the speed of sound in the water and are used to accurately calibrate the soundings. Once we had been working for a while with me observing – and asking what must have seemed like unending questions – PIC² Adam Argento and AST³ Andrew Clos guided me to monitoring the data being acquired. As you can see on the left there are 4 monitors all running software simultaneously. The picture on the right shows the keyboard and mice. The mouse in my right hand controls the windows on the three screens to the right which are data displays of received info. The left mouse controls which data are being acquired.

After a long day on the launch, it was great to see the Fairweather on this rainy day.

After lunch the coxswain⁴ (“coxin”) – AB Chrissie Mallory – turned the helm over to me to steer. My first leg was headed North. The positional displays on the Fairweather and its launches all have North being at the top of the displays. (This is called – logically enough – “North Up”.) I rocked! If I had to move off to the right a little, I turned right. Need to move left, turn left. There’s a little delay between when you turn and the position as displayed on the screen. Well, we got to the top of the section and turned around to head South. I needed to adjust a bit to the right, so I turned right . . . BUT . . . the boat is now oriented 180º from the prior run. So in turning right, I actually made the boat go left on the screen! Oh NOOO!!! So I overcompensated the other way. Then had to un-overcompensate . . . and so on. I’m sure when they downloaded the data back on the Fairweather they were wondering what the h*** was going on. Eventually I got the hang of it and didn’t do too badly after a while, but I have a much greater appreciation of what appeared to be really simple at the outset.

After a successful 8+ hours out (by the way, our lunches contained enough food for 6 people!) we headed back to the Fairweather about 15 miles away. To see her after a day out kind of felt like seeing home after a long day out. To the unaware, the ship looks like a mish-mash of all kinds of gear all over the place, but it’s remarkably organized. The reason for the appearance is that the ship is capable of so many tasks that the equipment is stowed in every available space. Fairweather is capable of deploying 7 small boats and operating independently of all of them in coordinated tasking! I’d love the opportunity to take a class of students for an all-day field trip aboard and could do so without ever leaving the dock – there’s so much on board!

As you can see in the photo of the Fairweather above, there are two large white inflated “fenders” hanging over the starboard side. This is where we’ll be tying alongside. (I took the next 3 shots from the Fairweather as 1010 approached on a different day.) As the launch approaches, the person on the bow will throw a line to the forward line handler. Notice there’s not a whole lot of room up there as well as the extended arm ready to catch the line. That bow line has a mark on it which lets the line handler on Fairweather know where to temporarily tie off the line. Then the stern line is then thrown to another line handler. Once the launch is positioned properly (no easy task in rolling seas) the hoists are lowered to the launch where they are clamped onto lifting eyes. Each of the clamps on the boat falls⁵ weighs close to 40 pounds – that’s why in deck ops everyone wears hardhats – and is controlled by both the winch operator and two more line handlers using “frapping lines⁶.” (in the picture to the left, as the launch approaches, you can see the boat falls, clamps and frapping lines.) Once the clamps are secured, the launch is lifted to the deck rail and the crew gets off, and the launch is lifted back to its cradle.

Piece of cake! Realize, however, that this simply and cleanly executed maneuver, requires: On the Fairweather: 4 line handlers The Chief Bosun 1 or 2 surveyors The bridge crew to maintain position (at least 2 people) 2 or 3 deck personnel to unload gear from the launch A Chief Scientist to task the launch The chefs to feed the launch crew On the launch: Person in charge Coxswain 1 winch operator From 14 to 16 people, all working together. On January 1, 2008, the Fairweather was authorized to paint a black letter “S” on both sides of the ship indicating that she had gone 433 consecutive days without any injuries. Considering the environment in which Fairweather works and the tasking which requires constant deployment and retrieval of heavy equipment, the “Safety S” is a reflection of her crew and officers.

Personal Log

What a great day!

Vocabulary

Soundings – depths measured
PIC – Person In Charge
AST – Assistant Survey Technician
Coxswain – (<O.Fr. coque “canoe” + swain “boy”) Individual who steers a small boat or launch
Boat falls – the lines used to raise and lower boats from a davit
Frapping lines – Lines used to control the boat falls

By the Way

It’s time to do some laundry!!! The laundry room is on D-Deck just forward of the fantail.

See you all tomorrow!

July 10, 2009April 5, 2021

John Schneider, July 10, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
John Schneider
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 7 – August 8, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: Kodiak, AK to Dutch Harbor, AK
Date: July 10, 2009

Position
Shumagin Islands

This sheet on my door lists my duty station in case of an emergency.

Weather Data from the Bridge
Weather System: Partly Cloudy/Fog/overcast
Barometer: 1022.0
Wind: variable <8 kts
Temperature: 13.0º C
Sea State: 1 foot

Science and Technology Log

Today I was not assigned to the launch details. (The launch crews change frequently and the officers try to have the duty load between the ship and the launches balanced. Launch duty is a minimum of an 8••• hour day on the water and it taxes the crew to have the same personnel repetitively deployed. I’m also not yet up to speed enough to have any use to data processing or ship-board data acquisition. Sooooo, I took a self-directed tour of the interior of the ship!

Personal Log

The ship is divided into Decks and Sections. The sections run from 1– 10 with the bow being 1 and the stern being 10. Decks run from A to G with G being the Flying Bridge and A being the bilge. My cabin is number C-5-106. I’m on C-deck, just about amidships. The sheet of paper above my cabin number is my duty station list for emergencies. Each crewmember has one of these on their door and it tells where you belong in emergencies: Fire/AbandonShip/MOB (ManOverBoard). Just outside my door there is a small computer area about 10’ x 10’. In that area are two terminals for the ship’s LAN. Additionally there is room in this area for each member berthed there (there are four of us) to stow some gear (like the work vest/life jacket on the hook next to my door.) To the left is a yellow ladder and the sign behind it reads “Escape Hatch Do Not Block.” There are escape hatches like this all over the ship and above them the decks are kept unobstructed.

The “chiller” where the food is refrigerated

Unlike a cruise ship, most of the ship is accessible to people on board. Of course the cabins of other folks are off limits. Violate this and the punishment is severe . . . you’d never get a position on another ship in the fleet again. Also, officers’ offices are restricted. Other than that, I spent a good couple of hours nosing around and learning my way around the ship. I found that EVERY spare nook and cranny is used for storage. If she had to, I bet the Fairweather could sail for months at a time with the only limiting factor being fuel. Fairweather even makes her own fresh water by evaporating and re-condensing seawater in order to extract the salt. They should sell it as bottled water!

Hazardous materials remediation equipment in the quartermaster’s storage.

I found a “chiller” where food is refrigerated. It’s HUGE – must have been 300-400 square feet! The freezer was locked, but it must be comparably sized. When I saw the lock on the freezer door I thought of the movie The Caine Mutiny with Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg (“they had the keys to the food locker. They ate the strawberries.” (If you’re not familiar with the movie it is certainly worth renting!). I also found several smaller compartments where dry goods for the chefs were stored. There were cake mixes, spices, cases of condiments (including 3 flavors of Tabasco Sauce) . . . name it, and the chefs can find it!

If you look up through the circular hatch you can see the caged hazmat locker.

Further forward I found the quartermaster’s stores. Line, chain, tools and an entire 250 square foot caged off area for Hazardous materials and asbestos remediation equipment. I opened a hatch in the floor and there was a ladder that went straight down. So, I went in to find another compartment of stores. The shot below is from the bottom of that ladder, and you can see the caged hazmat locker up through the hatch. In this lower compartment were survival coats and immersion suits, printer cartridges, more work vests and more. As I worked my way aft, I went into C-9 and C-10. C-10 is the steering compartment and the rudder posts (those are the “axles” of the rudder that come up into the ship) are about a foot in diameter! There’s a motor just to turn them and for them to operate in tandem there is an 8” steel bar connecting them. You can see it with the yellow stripes. C-10 is also the home to the stern mooring lines, lubricants, hoses and power cables and spare propellers for the launches as well as the hydraulic motors for the winches and equipment on the fantail.

Just forward of C-10 is C-9. C-9 has dozens of parts drawers with thousands of parts and fittings for all over the ship. It is also the home to the exercise equipment. The crew has figured out how to cram just about everything they need into the compartment. Free weight, Pilates balls, punching bag, speed bag, treadmill, and weight bench! There are even a few bicycles hanging from the overhead that are used in port.

This is the part of the ship called the steering compartment which houses the machinery that controls the direction of the ship.

To close the story (I’ll have to do your tour of decks D and up on a later day) I made it all the way down to A-Deck. A-Deck is the bottom of the ship. It is accessed by going through a shower compartment forward on C-deck into a small, half-height, sloped-ceiling opening in which there is a 24-inch diameter hatch. The 24-inch hatch connects with rungs welded into the wall and it goes straight down. Descend this ladder and your feet are on B-deck. Open an even SMALLER hatch and you can see the inner bottom of the ship. This compartment is only about 3••• feet tall, but I squeezed through the hatch and put my feet on the bottom. In retrospect, I should have taken off my Crocs to see how cold the steel was. I’ve been told that people actually go into this space to do work. I think if I could wiggle my way in somehow, the only way to ever get me out would be to drydock the ship and cut me out through the bottom!

This room has many drawers that contain thousands of different parts and fittings for all over the ship. It also has the exercise equipment.

Here I am squeezing through the hatch that leads to the very bottom of the ship

Here are my feet touching the bottom of the ship.

Questions for You to Investigate

Where does the term “scuttlebutt” (meaning rumors and gossip) come from?
The survey technicians use the term NADIR a lot in regards to the multi-beam echo sounder. What is a nadir?
When was the Marine Mammal Protection Act passed?
What was “Seward’s Folly” and how do you think it turned out for America?
Which is closer to the Shumagin Islands, New York City or Moscow? San Diego or Guam?

July 9, 2009April 5, 2021

John Schneider, July 9, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
John Schneider
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 7 – August 8, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: Kodiak, AK to Dutch Harbor, AK
Date: July 9, 2009

Position
Shumagin Islands

Weather Data from the Bridge
Barometer: 1022.3
Wind: light & variable
Temperature: 12.1ºC
Sea State: <1 foot

This top of this picture shows the area that has been surveyed, and the bottom half has not been surveyed yet.

Science and Technology Log

While part of the survey crew was doing more bottom sampling, launches 1010 and 1018 were deployed to acquire other data from areas ranging between 5 and 15 miles away. The launch deployments today were for 8 hours and the chefs prepare to-go lunches for the crews. The Fairweather is well-suited to its task here in the Shumagins. The crew is experienced at this and it shows. While the launches are away gathering data close to shorelines, the ship sails backand-forth across wide swaths of open ocean using the multi-beam sonar to document depth. Some members of the crew call this “mowing the lawn” which is a perfect analogy (I like to think of it more like a Zamboni cutting the ice in a hockey rink!)

The swath covered by the multi-beam sonar can extend to 75º up from vertical on each side of the ship. As you can see in the picture, the top half of the screen is green. This is an area that has been surveyed with Multi-Beam Echo Sounders (MBES). The white at the bottom is bottom that has not been surveyed. Fairweather is sailing a course from East to West on the screen and the MBES is sweeping a path indicated on the screen in orange. The colors are significant – they represent different depths. (If you look closely you can see a color bar on the left of the screen. Red=shallow, blue=deep.) the number on the right is the depth in meters. Fairweather does all its bathymetry (<Greek bottom/depth + measure) in meters as they are the units of scientific analysis. Hopefully in the next few days I’ll get to have a better understanding. Right now it kind of glazes over . . . too much input!

Deck Maintenance

Look Carefully - Blue writing! — Look Carefully – Blue writing!

A ship the size of the Fairweather (230 feet, 7 decks) has an enormous amount of maintenance required just to keep it ship-shape. The permanent crew of AB’s (Able Bodied Seaman,) engineers, stewards and officers keep the Fairweather spotless and running flawlessly. This morning there was need for a modification to a pulley used to deploy the bottom sampler. It was constructed in a short amount of time. The marine environment is merciless on steel and the ship is constantly being stripped of old paint, primed and repainted. Doing this requires that the old finish be removed with a “needle gun” which is a compressed air powered tool consisting of a 1.5cm diameter head of about 25 “needles.” The “needles” are more like 1 mm flathead finishing nails that bounce on the surface like mini-jackhammers.

By impacting the surface thousands of times a minute, old paint is loosened from the underlying steel and chips off. The really cool aspect of this is that the underlying steel isn’t even dented! When I started on this piece of steel it was painted with one layer of primer and two layers of white paint. Now it’s down to bare metal and the markings from the original construction of the davit are clearly legible! After being stripped, a coat of anti-oxidation paint is applied, then primer, then one or more coats of paint. The crew never stops and the condition of the Fairweather is a testament to their diligence.

Personal Log

The weather is absolutely perfect. It is sunny, warm, calm seas. I’m sure it can be (and probably will be) worse at some time during the trip, but for now everyone is soaking it all in! The Fairweather has a ship’s store with some snacks, necessities, T-shirts and other items. It’s open periodically (announced on the PA) and I’ll be sure to hit it up before leaving Dutch Harbor (but I’ve got to get to an ATM – they don’t take American Express.) 😉

Animals (or other cool stuff!) Observed Today

Whales about a mile off the bow – not close enough to see well – brittle stars, tube worms, more coral(!) and the daily dose of sea birds. This morning there was a bit of time when some fog was rolling over a mountain island about 10 miles away and it looked like the fog was just cascading over the top from the other side. Gorgeous!

July 8, 2009April 5, 2021

John Schneider, July 8, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
John Schneider
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 7 – August 8, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: Kodiak, AK to Dutch Harbor, AK
Date: July 8, 2009

Position
Small boat/launch operations vicinity; Herendeen Island (Shumagin Islands Group)

Weather Data from the Bridge
Wind: light & variable
Temperature: 12.7ºC
Sea State: 1 foot

Science and Technology Log

Today I’ll be heading out on the Ambar (an aluminum hulled inflatable) to check on a tide gauge off Herendeen Island. It might get chilly being off the Fairweather, but the weather has been fantastic since we left. Waves <1 foot, winds below 5 or 6 knots. Weather actually got better as we went to the tide station. (I’ll try to get a good shot of each of the launches.) The tide station is a remarkably simple in concept, yet a terribly complex operation to execute. A month ago, Fairweather personnel installed a tide station on Herendeen Island. This involved sending a launch to the island where personnel did the following setup work:

The tide gauge interface being downloaded to a weather/shockproof laptop computer

Drill a 1/2 inch hole 3” deep into a solid piece of granite and set a bronze bench mark into it.
Drill 3 more holes into a huge granite boulder at the water’s edge. Construct, on that boulder, a vertical tide gauge with markings every centimeter, ensuring that the bottom of the gauge is both lower and higher than the tide should go.
Precisely and accurately determine the height of the benchmark in relationship to the heights on the tide gauge.
Send a diver down below the lowest tide levels and install a nitrogen-fed orifice connected to a hose and secure it to the sea floor.
Connect the hose to a pressurized tank of nitrogen on shore.
Install a solar power panel near the station with a southern exposure.
Install the data acquisition interface. This piece of equipment forces a single nitrogen bubble out of the orifice every six minutes (one-tenth of an hour) and measures the pressure it takes to release the bubble which is then used to calculate the depth of the water (as a function of pressure.)

Collected data are automatically sent by satellite to NOAA. A month later, the survey team re-visits the site and performs a series of 10 visual observations coordinated with the automated sequences of the nitrogen bubble data recorder. These visual observations are then compared to the automated data acquired. If their statistical differences are within accepted parameters, the data are considered valid and will be used further. If not, the data are discarded and collection is re-started.

It's a little weird to see the Ambar leave after dropping us off on an island that has seen very few footprints! — It’s a little weird to see the Ambar leave after dropping us off on an island that has seen very few footprints!

Not only is the process painstaking, but the technology and Research & Development needed to design the equipment must have been extremely difficult. However, given the amount of our nation’s dependence on marine commerce and movement of goods, it is time and effort more than well spent. Once we returned to the ship, I was able to lend a hand on the fantail (that’s the aft area of the deck where a LOT of work gets done) where the survey team was collecting samples of the ocean bottom. Bottom sapling is done at specific locations proscribed by NOAA guidelines for coastal waters. It is important for mariners to know the type of bottom in an area in case they need to anchor or engage in commercial fishing.

Bottom samples are collected using a Shipek Grab. This 130-pound tool captures a 3-liter sample of the bottom. The scoop is spring loaded on the surface and when it strikes the bottom a very heavy weight triggers the scoop to close, picking up about 1/25 of a square meter of bottom. Bottom characteristics are then recorded with the position and will eventually be placed on nautical charts. Sometimes even small animals get caught in the grab. Today we saw brittle stars, tube worms and a couple of little crabs. However, the biggest surprise to me was finding numerous small pieces of CORAL in the samples! I certainly did not expect to see coral in ALASKAN waters!

Personal Log

A piece of coral on a pebble. (It's on a 3x5 file card for scale.) — A piece of coral on a pebble. (It’s on a 3×5 file card for scale.)

Lest you think that it’s all work and no play, we anchored tonight after a 12 hour+ work day. With sunset at around 2330 hrs (11:30) there was still time for some fishing (nothing was kept but we caught a couple small halibut) and movies in the conference room. There are movies aboard almost every night as well as closed circuit images from 4 areas of the ship. I’ve also started taking pictures of the menu board every night but won’t post all of them because of space limits on my file size – besides, you all simply wouldn’t believe how well we are fed on the Fairweather. Just as an example: how does blackened salmon wraps sound for lunch??? Oh yeah!!! (You have permission to be jealous!)

Coming back, the Fairweather, after being out of sight from the Ambar, is a welcome sight!

Animals (or other cool stuff!) Observed Today

Saw a whale in the distance, quite far off, just before lunch. Two seals a couple hundred meters aft of the port quarter. While at the tide station we saw two whales’ spouts near the shoreline, one seal poked his big ol’ head up from the kelp bed and checked us out a couple of times, saw a bunch of loons, cormorants and puffins, and while at the tide station, Dave Francksen (a very helpful member of the survey team) caught sight of an octopus.

This octopus was about 2 feet across from tentacle-tip to tentacle-tip and changed color when it got over the spotted light-colored rocks.

Questions for Your Investigation

What phylum and class are octopi? Are Brittle Stars?

What “day shape” does the Fairweather display when anchored? When conducting survey operations?

What do you call the kitchen on board a vessel?

July 7, 2009April 5, 2021

John Schneider, July 7, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
John Schneider
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 7 – August 8, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: Kodiak, AK to Dutch Harbor, AK
Date: July 7, 2009

Position
58º01.18’ N, 153° 29.56’ W (en route to the Shumagin Islands)

Weather Data from the Bridge
Weather System: Fog
Barometer: 1019.5
Temperature: 11.8º C
Sea State: 1-2 feet but to increase through the night

Ships in the distance as seen from the Fairweather

Personal Log

It’s 0610 and at almost exactly 0600 the generator started. The generators (there are 2) on board the Fairweather each put out about 300 kilowatts of electrical power. It’s the electrical power plant that will provide us with electricity for the next 2••• weeks. We’re going to sea in just 4 or 5 hours! I was fortunate to have breakfast with Captain Baird. Focused, professional, likeable, gregarious. He demonstrates characteristics of a fine leader.

Forty-five minutes prior to sailing, the ship’s alarm, fire alarm, watertight doors and PA were all tested. The professionalism of the crew is repeatedly demonstrated and I am in excellent hands. Every crew member has specific duty stations for specific duties. For docking and undocking the ship, my station is forward on the bow for assisting with line handling. The dock lines are really big and they are so long that they require several people to manage. Once again, teamwork, clear communication and coordination were displayed.

You can see how big the lines are when compared to my hand.

Well, my hands are still trembling from the exertion; in the comfort of my cabin I tried on my cold water immersion abandon ship suit (“Gumby suit”.) I wanted to see what was involved before we have an abandon ship drill later on. I sure hope we never need it. Being somewhat claustrophobic, the notion of being fully enveloped in a neoprene rubber suit with only half of my face showing is not exciting. To make it worse, I had a heck of a time escaping from the suit. It literally took about 7 or 8 minutes without assistance. I’ve got to ask if that’s normal or if there are any bigger suits!

Well, it’s 4 hours later and I just finished my safety briefing with Mr. Rice. Putting the suit on and taking it off are MUCH MUCH easier with assistance and instructions! I’m now comfortable and capable of donning it easily – but in no means don’t I want to need to! We’ve been under way for about 5 hours now and just completed a fire drill simulating smoke in a cabin aft on C-deck. Once again, well done. Shortly later, that was followed by the Abandon Ship drill. The entire crew had to don their Gumby suits and I was as ready as anyone. The two previous donnings saved me from looking foolish!

Here I am in my immersion suit, also called a “Gumby” suit.

Almost 1800 hours. Dinner was: fried chicken, barbequed pork chops with chipotle/sundried tomato glaze, fresh snow peas, cheesy potatoes, salad, and rice pudding with fresh whipped cream and raspberries!!! OMG I don’t want to go home! The BBQ is on the port side and the smell of dinner cooking just permeated the air. What a joy!

Animals (or other cool stuff!) Observed Today

While I was in the safety briefing the bridge spotted a couple whales / but there will be others! And as I get ready to turn in for the day, brilliant sunlight at 2200 hours!

Questions for You to Investigate

Without the immersion suit, in 45ºF water, how long would a normal person survive before hypothermia set in?

The mooring lines are a synthetic material less dense than water. Why is that an advantage?

What do “RADAR,” “SONAR” and “GPS” stand for?

Which animals are whales more closely related to, people or tuna?