Tripods can be placed in shallow water, where ships wouldn't be able to come at low tide. Able to measure under extreme weatherconditions. The need for large amounts of batteries for powering the electronics. Technical description of a typical UU tripod. Low vibration and little hydraulic disturbance are key concerns in designing tripods.
Vibrations can causes erroneous velocity measurements.
The instruments are mounted via brackets on the central pole. This enables the free positioning of the instruments relative to the bed. The instruments are wired to an electronics container on top of the tripod. A second container is filled with 256 standard D type alkaline batteries and will last for about one month. 3.5 meters between each leg.