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The Old Dominion University Boat Cruise was held on September 25, 2007. The cruise departed the harbor at 8:03 AM. We reached the first water collection site after two an half hours. Before reaching the site an introduction of the ODU vessel was given. One of the instruments included a water sampling machine with a steel cable attached. This machine could test for ten different water parameters at a time. We tested for Ph, Chlorophyll a, Salinity, Fluro, XMISS, Water Temperature, Relative Humidity. The device we used cost was $300,000.00 and weighed 80 pounds.
A steel cable was attached to the A frame that stood vertical off the boat that was attached to the electrical pulley. The frame would adjust due to the depth of the water to keep the radius wide and to keep intense tension off of the pulley wheel. There were two pulley devices one known as the smart cable that worked off of electricity and could lift a maximum of 8,000 pounds. In addition to a Muscle cable that not attached to the A-Frame. The muscle cable is utilized with heavy bottom testing instruments. In the Instance that the testing material must reach the ocean/ bay floor in a specific time restraints in order to record the most accurate data sample. The Muscle cable is operated off of a hand crank and had to drop off the bow of the boat manually. The ODU boat has been appraised at a little above three million dollars which includes all the equipment, software and hardware.
The Happy Hooker is another device that we were introduced too. The Happy Hooker is a device that is utilized to reach items on the surface of the water. It’s similar to a long pole with a open/close function at the end. This device is used with the muscle cable. During the orientation of the cruise we were told that if anyone went over board to throw something that will float and make the crew aware of the person(s) and items thrown overboard. There were various ropes throughout the boat. As well as two smaller boats in which one was an inflatable boat on board the cruise vessel. The captain of this cruise vessel was Richard Cox he was born in Elizabeth City and retired from the Navy.
There were seven passengers on board this vessel. There were two faculty members in attendance for Elizabeth City State University Jinchun Yuan, Ph.D. Director of Research in the Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research (CERSER) and Keisha Harrison-Wilkins Research Associate at CERSER. Kaiem L. Frink a Computer Science Senior with a minor in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at ECSU in pursuit of a Ph.D., and Travis Smith is an Industrial Technology Senior at ECSU with a minor in networking. In attendance for ODU was Jose L. Blanco, PhD from the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography located on the campus of Old Dominion University and Samantha Sackett is an Oceanography Senior.
Kaiem Frink, CERSER URE Student |
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