Larry Atkinson
Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529

The first meeting of the Regional Research Vessel Group (RRVG) was held during the UNOLS sponsored Wire and Winch Symposium in New Orleans on 30NOV99. As you know there are nine vessels of this class in the UNOLS fleet:
                                        Length     Year Built     Owner
CAPE HATTERAS       135’           1981              NSF
POINT SUR                  135’           1981              NSF
ALPHA HELIX             133’           1966              NSF
CAPE HENLOPEN      125’           1976              U of Delaware
ROBERT G. SPROUL  125’           1981              SIO
WEATHERBIRD II       115’           1982              BBSR
SEA DIVER                  113’           1959              HBOI
PELICAN                     105’           1985              LUMCON
LONGHORN               105’           1971              U of Texas

All of the vessels were represented with the exception of the ALPHA HELIX. The meeting also included scientists and marine technicians as well as representatives from the UNOLS office. The focus of this group is to work together in planning the mid-life refits of the five vessels under 20 years of age and to help the process of replacing the four older vessels in this fleet. We hope future meetings of this group will be viewed as a community forum for ship operators, scientists and funding agencies.

Here is a list of the attendees:

BBSR             Lee Black, Marine Superintendent
                       Rod Johnson, BATS Program Manager
                       Lee Ellett, Marine Technician
DUKE            Larry Morris, Asst. Marine Superintendent
                       Tim Shaw, Marine Technician
HBOI             Tim Askew, Marine Superintendent
LUMCON     Steve Rabalais, Asst. Director
MLML           Mike Prince, Marine Superintendent
MBARI          Ken Johnson, Chemical Oceanographer
SIO                Tom Althouse, Marine Superintendent
                       Ron Comer, Resident Technician
U. of Delaware     Tim Deering, Marine Technician
UNOLS         Annette DeSilva, Asst. Executive Secretary
                      Jack Bash, Executive Secretary
UT                 Noe Cantu, Senior Captain
WHOI           Dutch Wegman, Port Engineer
                      Jon Alberts, Marine Operations Coordinator

The topics of discussion included the Science Mission Requirement (SMR) established by the Fleet Improvement Committee (FIC) for these vessels, standardizing vessel capabilities, useful life of these vessels, scope of refit work to be done, improving scientific involvement in planning, funding sources and time-lines for this work. We also agreed that while final planning would be done on an individual basis much of the general planning could be accomplished using a community forum. While the discussions were good there was just not enough time to go into detail on any of these topics.

The consensus was that another meeting to continue this effort would be of great help. Our hope is that it could coincide with the spring meeting, in Baltimore, of the UNOLS Fleet Improvement Committee. The presence of FIC members would certainly enhance this forum. Travel cost would be minimized as Baltimore would be convenient for many of the members of the RRVG and some would already be in town for the FIC meeting.

Please let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Lee Black

Cc: T. Althouse, T. Askew, J. Bash, N. Cantu, J. Coburn, A. DeSilva, E. Dieter, M. Hawkins, K. Johnson, Q. Lewis, P. Ljunggren, M. Prince, S. Rabalais, T. Smith