So much effort was required gathering and entering data that there was little time for subsequent analyses. In 1988, two years of development work came to fruition when use of electronic fish measuring boards began in the field. These boards are connected to a computer running a data base program. As each fish is placed on the board, the operator touches a magnetic wand to the end of the fish's tail, and the length is electronically recorded. Using these boards, almost all data are now entered directly in a computer data base on board the research vessel, and few fish are ever brought back to the lab.
Data are available for analysis within a couple of days of the field work.
In addition to fish lengths, hydrographic and station data are also collected. We are currently working on methods to interface data into a centralized database on board.