Ladies and Germs
The group photo with 23 of the 44 people on board. Both this photo and the cover photo are taken by Cassi.
Written by Savannah Evans
The Bridge
In the bridge are the captain, Mark, the chief mate, Laura, the second mate, Wilson, the third mate, Stephen, and one of the A/Bs, Bronwyn and Rimando, who does watch and rounds. The driver has to get as close to each dropping point and OBS as possible for deployment and recovery, accounting for wind and current direction and speed. They have to keep a close eye on the speed so that the distance between the gun strings doesn't get too small, which would call for maintenance. They watch out for ships in the area and will communicate with their captains, negotiating avoidance paths and ensuring that other ships don't come within two miles of this ship's aft when the gun strings are deployed. A computer often drives the boat so that they can focus on specifications and not messing up the gear.
The chief mate, Laura, leading a man overboard drill.
The captain deals with the office and department managers, manages ship business, acts as the medic, and runs the slop chest. Laura runs the deck crew, deals with vendors and inspections, makes sure the ship is clean and safe with the help of the deck crew, makes punch lists and reports, manages man hours to make sure that workers adhere to work and rest balance, and trains O/Ss. Wilson is in charge of navigation and makes the waypoints for dropping OBSs, and Stephen is in charge of safety gear and inspection. They all do safety drills with debriefs and training afterwards.
Jim and Jun preparing for dinner.
The Stewards
I've heard that the key to a good cruise is the team morale that comes from a well-fed crew. In the galley, Jim, the steward, and Jun, the cook, prepare three meals a day and keep the mess hall stocked with various options for the crew to have access to 24 hours a day including saving meals for those who request it. They're in charge of maintaining the cleanliness of the galley area, planning out elaborate meals everyday with consideration of expiration dates (complicated by being at sea for weeks or months at a time), labeling and dating all items, and overseeing the laundry room while seeing that the housekeeping items are stocked. They get help from a utility O/S (Ireland or Pria), who washes dishes, cleans tables, aids in stocking the mess hall, and assists the cooks in whatever way they need.
Sara and Mac stopping by the main lab.
The Marine Engineers
The bosun, Ricky, is the head of the deck crew under the mates. He is in charge of upkeep on the boat, organizing project lists, and making sure the projects are getting done. He loads and unloads cargo at port as the crane operator and does needling, painting, and grinding onboard.
The A/Bs are Bronwyn and Rimando. They are licensed mariners/deckhands who load and unload cargo, take ship scores, and do maintenance like needling, grinding, sanding, and painting on the ship, and have lookout duties (bridge watch at sea and gangway watch on shore).
There are two O/Ss onboard: Ireland and Pria, and the two types of O/Ss are deck and utility. Deck O/Ss do exterior work under the captain, mates, and bosun while utility O/Ss do interior work under the steward and cook, as mentioned in the galley section.
Cassi, Ireland, and Todd.
The chief engineer, Matt, the first engineer, Sam, the second engineer, Sean, and the third engineer, Sara, run the engine room and keep the boat moving with the help of the oilers, Mac and David. The engineers maintain the engines, compressors, and all kinds of other machinery. Matt is in charge of everything mechanical on the vessel as well as safety, scheduling maintenance, and personnel. Sam oversees the running of the engine room and scheduled maintenance. Sean is in charge of maintenance on the main engines and refrigeration, checking fuel and oil levels and working on equipment when needed. Sara handles the reverse osmosis machines and evaporator that make water for the ship, the hands-on maintenance of three units, and the sewage system. The oilers, Mac and David, do rounds, wipe leaks, check belts, make sure everything is operating properly, and open up machinery to clean out lint. There is more work than can be done on this vessel; things break down and wear down more often than younger vessels, and the maintenance cost and workload is increasing over time. However, there are some specialty things in this engine room that you might not see on other ships. For example, there are two compressors that are bigger than those on any other vessel in the world. They run at 2,000 horsepower and can be seen in the photo below.
Savannah with the compressors in the engine room. Photo by Sam.
Mike is the electrician. He does a little bit of everything, running around and fixing stuff. Philosopher. Extraordinaire.
Mike in the main lab.
The Seismic Technicians
The gunners/mechanics are Mac, Leon, Tawfik, Leonald, Mike, and Sean. They deploy and recover the air guns and build, maintain, troubleshoot, and repair them, making sure that they work properly and are in good shape, that the strings are positioned right, that they are kept at the right depth, and that the pressure is maintained at 2,000 psi. They troubleshoot any problem throughout the line and deal with streamer wenches, hydraulics, lubrification, splicing ropes, deploying nodes, and running the A-frame as well.
Leon working on one of the guns.
The OBS techs include Alan, Dan, and Nick. They operate, assemble, configure, deploy, and recover the OBS equipment. They are responsible for quality control, extracting the data, and maintaining, troubleshooting, and repairing the instruments.
OBS recovery
Todd is our chief science officer who acts as a liaison throughout departments. Also known as the party manager/chief or orchestrator, he is responsible for planning, management, and administration. He does daily production and invoicing procurement and other technical and logistic support and management.
The Todds, up to no good, as usual.
The science officer/marine tech/navigation crew includes Aaron, Koray, Riley, and Klay. Their responsibilities are to set up, configure, operate, maintain, and repair/troubleshoot all technical equipment onboard related to science operations. They manage the INS (Integrated Navigation System), which includes vessel and in-sea positioning devices and data such as GPS, rGPS, echosounder, compasses, source and streamer positioning, and the gyroscope. They oversee sonar acquisition including multibeam, Knudsen, ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler), and CTD/XBT (speed, sound, salinity, and temperature profiling through water). They monitor the sources and set up, configure, and run the source control program. They are also responsible for multichannel seismic data acquisition monitoring and streamer deployment, recovery, repair, and set up.
Aaron, Koray, and Riley, probably up to something very important.
Nikko is the intern. He shadows Koray, Aaron, and Riley, helping them with their duties as well as deploying and recovering OBSs.
Nikko in the main lab, finally having adjusted to life at sea with Cassi in the background spreading mischief.
The PSOs
The protected species observers (PSOs) are Cassi, Lorena, Laura, Ana, and Claudia. While the seismic source is active, they visually and acoustically monitor for different types of species groups like marine mammals, sea turtles, and endangered birds. Once located, they watch out for the specific radii of different species and ensure that seismic sources are halted until the ship is no longer within any radius. They take observations, watch out for VSA (vessel strike avoidance), make sure that we don't disrupt the natural behavior of any protected species, and host movie nights.
Claudia, Ana, Lorena, Laura, and Cassi in the movie room.
The PI and the Students
Harm is the principal investigator. Most of his job is done before setting out to sea since he is the one who defined the scientific problem and answer that we are looking for. Acquiring the environmental and other permits was a year-long process, and he had to get funding from the NSF (National Science Foundation) and invite people to come along. He also had to define two goals: data that we need in order for the trip to be a success and data that would be nice to have. He tries to resolve problems from a distance, tries to ensure the trip is successful, and estimates the amount of time needed. He has to collaborate with the Navy about the data so that he and his colleagues can work with it once he returns to his institution.
Elika, Harm, Yakubu, Victor, Savannah, and Ranpeng.
The students are Ranpeng, Yakubu, Victor, Elika, and Savannah. We are responsible for logging data involving the deployment and recovery of all instruments and any notable events and changes that might affect the plan or data acquisition. We watch ship and instrument specs alongside the navigators/science officers, help with OBS deployment and recovery when needed, and deploy and log XBT probes.
Broom Stache, et cetera. Photo by Cassi.
Written by Savannah Evans
Blog edited by Ranpeng Li
