RVTEC report to the UNOLS Council Meeting, September 26, 2002

Dale Chayes, September 22, 2002

The RVTEC annual meeting is scheduled for November 12-14, 2002 and will be hosted by the University of Hawaii/SOEST in Hawaii. The draft agenda is available on the UNOLS web site at <http://www.unols.org/rvtec/rvtmt211/rvtag211.html>. Specific topics scheduled for discussion include isotope procedures, towed undulating bodies and wire design issues.

Rich Findley, Jon Alberts, Mike Prince and myself have recently started to make some progress on the "new wire for CTDs" issue. We have developed a draft proposal to fund the design, development and testing of a new wire and will include evaluation of the impact of the characteristics of the new design on existing (and new) winches, sheaves and A-frames. It seems likely that we will have to move forward in parallel with the "safe working load" definition effort.

We continue to struggle (not particularly effectively) with the notion of how to define standard levels of service across the fleet. It is likely that we will ask the UNOLS office if Annette can take the lead in coordinating an approach to this effort.

We have been actively participating in the SMR efforts for the Ocean and Regional class vessels and may contribute to the ARRV design and the Ewing refit discussions.

RVTEC will be represented at the 2002 INMARTECH by Barrie Walden from WHOI, Woody Sutherland and a couple of others from SIO, Marc Willis and Linda Fayler from OSU, Bill Martin from UW and two people from the Healy. I am not going as I will not be back from this cruise in time. The URL for this meeting is:
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/jamstec-e/whatsnew/inmartech2002/index.html.

RVTEC was represented at the Ocean and Regional Science Mission Requirements workshops this summer and expect to continue to participate in the discussion by email and via the web. I was present at the Ocean Class SMR meeting. Although no current members of RVTEC could attend the Regional Class SMR workshop, a couple past members wee present.

RVTEC also contributed to the development of the recently updated post cruise assessment form and process.