Day 8 Log FULL VERSION (2065 words)

February 2, 2006

Lisa Borok, MBARI

Every morning and evening, a small cluster of us gather at the interior
window in the lab to watch the careful choreography of the *Western
Flyer* crew as they deploy and retrieve the ROV *Tiburon* through a
central door in the floor of the ship. None of us seem to get tired of
looking at this ballet of hardware and human skill. But that's just the
beginning. After observing for the past few days what goes into piloting
this Volkswagen-sized sub, I've developed a real appreciation for the
teamwork and skill that go into working with this technology.

Just walking into the Control Room gives you an idea that this is tricky
stuff. Located in the port aft section (that's the rear, left side) of
the ship, the Control Room houses all of the electronics to operate the
ROV. Five chairs, each with a microphone headset, are fixed to the floor
in front of an eight-foot wall of electronics. Twenty-three monitors and
plasma screens flash with vital information about the ROV's hydraulics,
navigation, electrical systems, tether cable, and cameras. (Figure 1)
It's not unlike the space center controlling the Mars rovers. The
similarity isn't just coincidence. Going deep require some of the same
technology and teamwork as going into space. Both are unforgiving
environments that are extremely hard on gear. Make a big mistake and
millions of dollars of technology are swept away into the darkness.

*Tiburon's* pilots aren't prone to big mistakes though. In 10 years of
operation, they've set a high standard for completing missions and
keeping the ROV in working order. On this cruise, that's been an extra
challenge. *Tiburon* is starting to show its age and we've had more than
the usual number of ground faults and glitches. In the evenings, we've
listened in as MBARI's five pilots Buck, Buzz, Dave, Randy, and Bryan
trouble-shoot their way through each issue and find creative ways to
work around spare parts that aren't on board, or trace the source of a
errant signal. (Figure 2) Each morning, *Tiburon* is ready to go and is
fitted with that day's instruments.

During morning launch, the dance commences and *Tiburon* is lowered via
two cranes through the moonpool doors in the floor. The *Western Flyer*
rides on two enormous pontoons that keeps the deck of the ship 3 meters
(9 feet) above the churning sea surface. (Figure 3) After the ROV
splashes down, one of the pilots in the launch bay uses the an
instrument pack strapped to his waist to fly the craft down to about 100
meters (300+ feet) below the ship. At that depth it's safe to maneuver
the ROV to its destination.

Once the ROV is clear from the ship, the crew in the Control Room takes
over from the moonpool team. Scanning the operations from left to right
across the five stations, I watch the co-pilot, pilot, science lead,
annotator, and navigator swing into the quiet, coordinated action that
will continue for the next ten to twelve hours.

The five ROV pilots rotate through the first two stations every two
hours: one as co-pilot, one as pilot. Then each man rotates off for
three hours. Mealtimes require a faster swap-out, so everyone has a
chance to eat. The science chair has a looser arrangement with Jim,
Andrew, Allen (or occasionally another of us) swapping every few hours,
depending on the work in progress. At the annotation station Lonny and
Erica swap duties about every two hours or so. Chad keeps to the
navigation station throughout the day with relief from Huff, Lonny, and
Erica. On the BBC dives, Warwick has been the Iron Man, working the
science consol for most of the dive day with Penny at annotation. Those
of us not on a station sit in four business-class airline seats bolted
to the back wall (in what's known as the "peanut gallery") or on the
floor when things are exciting and everyone crowds in.

The co-pilot stays quite busy observing six different screens and
tending several systems at once: There's the 2 meter (6+ foot) diameter
winch that pays out and reels in the ROV's umbilical cord. Then there's
keeping tabs on the "delta" on the cable (the distance between the top
float on the cable and the ROV), so the umbilical doesn't drag on the
seafloor. Next, there's setting the sonar sweep that lets the pilot know
where canyon walls and seafloor boulders pose obstacles. The co-pilot
keeps an eye on all the ROV's systems and trouble-shoots as needed. He
also has the heavy responsibility of keeping the iTunes mix up and
running! And finally, what to me seems like the most glamorous task: the
co-pilot controls the manipulator arm on the ROV.

*On Day 3 this week, Randy slips his right forearm into the mechanical
"master" arm on the co-pilot's chair that allows him to move the seven
joints on Tiburon's 1.9 meter (74 inch) manipulator arm. The master arm
has "force feedback" which means that if the manipulator arm down on the
ROV bumps against a surface or is at its fullest extension, Randy feels
the same thing sitting in the Control Room. The master arm can also give
him a sense of how heavy something is when he picks it up in the claw.*

*Allen, in the science chair, asks Randy to collect a promising specimen
of Corallium coral growing on a small rock. The challenge is to pick up
the specimen, rock and all. Working carefully, Randy moves another rock
aside, wraps the claw under and around the specimen and plucks it intact
from the seafloor. Cheers and congratulations erupt from the rest of us.
What finesse!*

The pilot's station is deceptively quiet looking. With five plasma
screens and computer monitors before him, the pilot's main duty is to
safely fly the ROV over the seafloor, around walls and outcrops, up and
back to points of scientific interest, or straight and level over many
meters of transect lines. Using a joystick in one hand and vertical
thrust lever in the other, the pilot sometimes looks like X-box gamer.
While keeping the craft on task, the pilot also controls the hydraulic
sample drawer, pan and tilt of the piloting camera and lights, and
maintains the delicate balance of distance and direction between the ROV
and the ship. The pilot also lines up the still camera (a Nikon Cool
Pix) to take photos that science party may want of places and critters
along the dive. And it's the pilot who communicates navigation needs to
the ship's bridge crew, who in turn keep the *Western Flyer* safe, yet
at the service of the ROV.

*Bryan had his hands full on the afternoon of Day 5 as the strong
currents around the NE end of the seamount created "issues." The drag on
the umbilical above the ROV kept yanking the craft, causing it to bounce
around. It took several hard hours of flying to reach one of the peaks
that the science party wanted to explore. Once he managed to fly up the
slope, the current was so strong that he could barely touch down on the
crest. The crew managed a quick current measurement, grabbed a volcanic
rock, and called the dive. Days like these probably make a good argument
for requesting an on-board hot tub to help soothe tired muscles!*

While the pilots rotate through their stations, it falls to the science
station to conduct the overall mission of the ROV for the day. It is the
scientist in this seat who directs timing and location of collections,
instrument readings, and water samples. They determine the ROV's course
and when to pause to look around, zoom in for closer inspection, or run
through a transect. (Figure 4) The science station requests Cool Pix
shots and has the responsibility of running the High Definition video
camera and lights. Though this could temp any wannabe Spielberg into all
kinds of inventive camera effects, the video recording is often the most
important data source for each dive. All of the scientist's (and
pilot's) comments through the headset are recorded along with the
images. Researchers from many institutions consult MBARI's video
holdings, so matter-of-fact film techniques are preferred. The ultimate
choice of when to end a dive rests with the scientist.

*All this week, Andrew and Jim have led us up peaks and down valleys
over the bumpy Davidson terrain as we visit or revisit as many sites as
possible. Some days have been filled with stunning coral gardens while
others were fun mainly for those excited by watching volcanic rocks for
hours on end. On Day 4, Warwick took the science chair, filming for the
upcoming BBC series, Planet Earth. He used specially rigged lights on
Tiburon to their fullest effect. After soloing at the science station
for much of the 11-hour dive he emerged glassy-eyed, but pleased. He's
captured stunning views and close-ups that we all hope to see again when
the series is released in the US next year.*

One of the critical but less glamorous stations in the room is
annotations. All dives are videotaped from the time the ROV enters the
water to the time it's back on deck. At this station, a science crew
member uses a sophisticated database called VARS (Video Annotation and
Reference System) to enter a running list of all the highlights of the
dive. He or she can also grab still-images off the video. These notes
and images are synched with the time code (a measure of where in the
recording we are) on the videotape, so we can easily find certain events
or views after the dive. VARS information can include names of species
we see and observations about behavior and habitats. This and the data
from the ROV (temperature, oxygen, depth, position) are merged to
provide a knowledgebase that researchers can "mine" later on. Once back
on shore, the annotation team at MBARI's video lab run through every
dive tape to refine their notes and pick out any additional comments
from the scientist's running narration.

*As you can imagine, Lonny and Erica have captured many hours of video
this week. We're recording this expedition in both Digi-beta and HD
formats and they have been using up boxes and boxes of tapes. Each tape
records about an hour of the dive, so Erica and Lonny keep busy,
swapping tapes in and out of both decks, labeling each one. Filled boxes
are stored beneath the peanut gallery seats. By the time we step off the
boat next Saturday they will have completed over 200 tapes!*

Finally, in the far corner of the Control Room sits the navigator in
front of one computer monitor. As you read in Chad's log a few days ago,
his role is to provide compass bearings for the pilot and plot
tracklines, or routes, for the ROV to fly along.

*With his skills in GIS, Chad has kept us engaged with the nav consol by
creating and updating eye-catching color images that show the ROV and
ship positions over a 3-D map of the seamount below us.*

The ever-shifting group in the rear of the room looks on and listens on
headsets. We take notes, look up species names, request frame grabs,
discuss collections and hypotheses, and sometimes kibbutz and banter
with the rest of the room.

This kind of teamwork between the science crew and ROV pilots goes on
year-round on the *Western Flyer* and other oceanographic ships around
the world. Our Davidson expedition will be complete in a few more days,
but I will come away with a great respect for the comradery and skill
involved in ROV-based research.

*This morning, I looked up from my laptop in the dry lab to find
everyone gone. Checking the live feed from the ROV camera, I could see
that we were still descending. It was one of our deepest dives and took
over an hour to reach the bottom. Curious as to where everyone had gone,
I made my way across the launch bay to the Control Room. The place was
packed and it took me a few moments to figure out what was worth looking
at on the big plasma screen. Don't tell the bridge crew, but we watched
a movie!*