SoMAS Ocean Glider Program
Cruise SBU01-8
October 11, 2022
Deployed ~5 miles south of Shinnecock Inlet from the RV Parker at 40o
45.083', 72o 23.890'
Mission started on October 11, 2022 at 1924 GMT
Glider aborted on October 29, 2022 near Hudson Canyon and then lost
contact.
On October 11 at 1935 GMT the glider was sent off forth on cruise
SBU01-08. Sensors included the CTD with pH, Ecopuck, DO and a
small Vemco fish chip receiver mounted on top. Here is a picture of glider ready for is
first test dive.
This deployment did not end quite as expected and turned into a bit
of a saga. As the plots for SBU01-08 below show, the cruise
seemed to end half-way through out at the edge of the shelf.
On October 29th we lost contact with the glider. That
sometimes happens if the glider gets swamped by a big wave but it
usually calls back. Didn't this time. In fact we did not
hear from it for days and were about to write it off. Then on
November 5th, a week after we'd lost contact, it called home ~160km
southwest of where it was when last heard from. Great
excitement! The glider then proceeded north at ~7kts.
That's not usual so clearly it was on a boat. We then tracked
the unit back ashore, across Delaware, into Maryland and to the
backyard of Tom (Butch) Wright. Butch and a friend were
fishing over one of the canyons at the edge of the the shelf in his
boat, Off Site, when they heard a thump and looked over the side and
there was the glider. The best guess is that the glider was
caught in some fishing gear and it was that that got snagged on the
boat's propeller. The glider was fine. At least no
propeller marks. One question was, why did Butch bring the
glider aboard? There is a sticker on the glider that gives the
SBU contact information and also says to retrieve the glider after a
certain date which is updated for each deployment. So,
thinking that this deployment should end by mid-November but
thinking October, the retrieve date was written as "Oct 15".
Turns out to have been a good error because the next port of call
for the glider was going to be Ireland. So hurrah for
Butch! The glider is back at SoMAS and undergoing a "post
mortem". The next deployment is scheduled for February.
Webpage with near realtime data
plots
Matfile with post cruise data
