Draft

Meeting Minutes
UNOLS Ship Scheduling Meeting

September 19, 2007

National Science Foundation –
4201 Wilson Boulevard - Stafford I - Rm 1235
Arlington, VA 22230

Appendices

I. Agenda

II. Attendees

 

0830 Rose Dufour, SSC Chair called the meeting to order
Introductions were made around the room. See attendance list (appendix II).

Agency reports

NSF - Linda Goad
GEO budget growth of 1.2%. FY07 budget went up down and sideways, and ended with a continuing resolution for the entire year, which was funded at the President's request for 07. Science budgets received about a 6.6% increase and Linda was able to prepay some costs for 2008.

There was a 6.3% increase for FY08 in the President's request. The Senate has NSF doubling in four years and the House in seven years in authorization bill, however they are anticipating a continuing resolution for at least part of the year. All in all the budget picture is better than it has been for several years.

Staffing - They have advertised twice for IPS section head and have been caught up by larger issues. Will advertise again in the near future. May have someone soon for help on the ARRV and are lining up someone to cover Sandy Shor's job.

ONR - Bob Houtman
There is an anticipation of level funding for FY08, which is about 10 million dollars in the ship account and they historically get another 1 - 2 Million from other Navy sources. For 08 this will be closer to 1M. No news on any plus-up.

NOAA - Ralph Rogers. It looks like charter dollars will be less than previous years. 6.5 Million for DART charters with about 1M to 1.5M for UNOLS charter

Review of Ship Schedules

R/V Pelican - Joe Malbrough
243 days, 73 pending. No real holes. Needs to maintain the maintenance period in September. Don't have anything in the works, but would not be able to schedule more if anything comes up. Possible 10 day cruise for Warren Wood that is funded. STR not submitted yet. Needs something larger than the Pelican. Day rate 7440, 1218 tech, 8658 total

R/V
Walton Smith - Pete Skipp
151 days, 74 pending and 77 funded. Days = 136 after removing D'Asaro. Set one. Set two has the Ostrom buoy recovery work, however the surface buoy is missing. They want to have all possible means of recovery in case there are problems with the release. This has been rescheduled on R/V Seward Johnson for April 2008. Remove from R/V Walton Smith. D'Asaro is double booked with R/V Cape Hatteras. This is a hurricane response cruise, so it should not be on a schedule until needed. Silivetch is double booked on several schedules. Has to go in April or May. Linda would prefer to continue on the Hatteras. Some possible work in the wings.

R/V Savannah - Jack Blanton
Talifert's project ends in February, but does not have an extention. Caracoops may have a 2008 program, but have not committed yet. Open periods in Jan/Feb. 120 days total. Day rate 7020, 936, 7956.

R/V Blue Heron - (Doug Ricketts not here) 72 days total, 34 funded, 38 pending. Day rates 6576, 918, 7494

R/V Atlantic Explorer - Lee Black
175 days NSF all funded. May need some cruises covered in the fall due to a mandatory drydocking. Will have to be more than one BATs cruise to warrant a ship coming over.
Day rates,15000, 2000, 17000.

R/V Hugh Sharp
- Matt Hawkins
Hinges on N.J. Windfarm project. The money is in place, but have to work on the paperwork. Really a matter of when, not if. Rates are 9600, 1300, 10900 Might lose. Bumgartner is on set two, funding uncertain, Bob H. to check with program manager. There are some pending projects that have not gone to panels, but may fit better on Hatteras or Savannah. 187 days total, 78 funded, 109 pending. 165 - 185 are realistic days assuming N.J. goes through. Checking on Sherman's project to see when it is funded. 0732322, PI Lerzzak, Dynamics of Shoaling. Sherman is Co-PI. Start date is May 07. Assuming the 2007 request.

R/V Seward Johnson - Tim Askew
Mandatory drydock by March. Bill Johns is scheduled with a few extra days. Splitting the cruise into two legs to reduce the deck load. Break the cruise in to two legs. Ostrom is moved from 2007, Chaytor depends on being in San Juan. Halanych is not out to panel yet, reduced op days to 0. DART reduced to 15 days and changed to Pending. New Total 146 total, 131 pending.
Rate 16550, 3000, 19550.

R/V Cape Hatteras - Joe Ustach
122 days, all Hatteras request except Etter. Potential 14 day NASA cruise for Cindy Van Dover. Bumgartner is old request and needs to be checked. Etter asked for an Intermediate, but could go on Hatteras. Open Jan/Feb Nov/Dec. Rates are 11,700, 1,500

R/V Endeavor - Mary-Lynn Dickson
245 days funded work, 184 NSF days. 12 scheduled state days, 19 to be scheduled and probably will add 8 days for Kate Moran. Tim Stanton/WHOI will add 10 days of ONR funding.

Schedule starts in Jan and goes through late October. Boyle is double booked, requested Endeavor and would like to use Endeavor based on past experience with towed fish. Simon Metz = Lam is funded for a 6 day extension, plus 1 more day added to Boyle. Need to sort out this cruise, which is supposed to be one cruise with everyone on board, with the Lam extension part of the cruise. Rates = 21362, 4105.

R/V Oceanus - Liz Caporelli
Open at the beginning of the year. DART may need a cruise in March for a buoy turnaround for 12 days, 10 transit and 2 days on station. Cruises through Durbin are all doublebooked with Endeavor and Etter is also on Hatteras. There is a cruise for Saudia Arabia to start up a new university. Scheduled late in the year to allow hiring of scientists and to avoid Ramadan. There are several cruises they can't cover if they go to Saudia Arabia.198 days total. Day rates 21480, 3215.

R/V Clifford Barnes - Dan Schwartz
Total 98 days, most need to be scheduled. State work is pending. Some of the Thompson academic cruises may switch to Barnes. rates 2808, 813. 75 NSF days

R/V Sproul - Rose Dufour
95 days all local to San Diego and Santa Barbara Channel. Some days are carry over from 2007, have been asked. Rates = 13456, 1320

R/V Point Sur - Stewart Lamerdin
Set two - 185 days, db Deprospo and Domada. Pending MBARI work depends on decisions regarding covering for Western Flyer. Komada cruise is from San Francisco State, could load in Moss Landing, need clean ship, work is about half-way between ML and SD. Deprospo is double booked with New Horizon, same distance from ML as SD, could be done for less money on Point Sur, but bunk space will be an issue. New person at NPS to coordinate ship time is Victoria Taber. Concerns about the day rates increasing and whether or not the CNMOC funding will cover 26 days. Set one = 155 days = 14,000, 2070. Set two = 185 days = 10,900, 1725. Stewart has asked MBARI to put in ship time requests if they need to cover for Western Flyer.

R/V Wecoma - Pete Zerr
Set two is optimistic and includes trips to Honolulu and south for VOCALS. Ron Brown will be on the VOCALS cruise in October, VOCALS proposals are still pending review and will only be one cruise/PI for a total of 24 science days at most. Bangs would prefer a larger schedule. Trip to Hawaii is double booked with Kilo Moana and Melville.

R/V New Horizon - Rose Dufour
Depends on the Langseth Holbrook cruise start date. DART cruise has to go earlier than scheduled. Wants to start on Jan 16th. Regulatory shipyard in May. Keeling cruise may get shifted later

Umhoefer cruise has been rescheduled three times due to environmental permitting from Mexico. Ohman is tied to CALCOFI. Terrill is pending NOAA equipment test. Collins request is covered on Atlantis O7. Deprospo would need to shift to another ship. New Horizon would wait in Costa Rica if Langseth is delayed. Stewart and Pete talked to DeProsporo's people. The work could be done from any ship but has to be in Jan off SLO for permit reasons.

East Coast Intermediates
164 days for Intermediates split so that Hatteras, Endeavor and Oceanus each have about 85 federal funded science days. Leave Etter on Cape Hatteras. Each build on that with the outside work such as N.C., URI and Saudi Arabia. Talifert has not requested a no cost extension from Georgia Tech, which he still has time to do and then could go to see in 2008. Looked at West Coast Intermediates options for consolidation and stand down periods.

R/V Marcus Langseth - John Diebold
Taiger, Program manager was informed that 2009 was the time for this project. Need to make sure Wu/McIntosh are informed. No interaction between the passive OBS deployment and Langseth schedule. WHOI and LDEO will work out the interactions between Atlantis and Mutter cruise.

R/V Thomas G. Thompson - Dan Schwartz
Set 3, assumes MAR goes on Revelle. Do Howe as requested but depends on MARS and engineering needs to be done. They have a mandatory drydocking by the end of December. Have asked about doing this in June, waiting on Coast Guard. Emerson cruise is a potential conflict with his East Coast cruise. Reysenbach does not want to go just three months after the MAR cruise.

Duennebier needs at least 2 weeks delay in 2007, causes problems with ROV schedule. Talked about delaying to fall of 2008. This would delay Fisher into later November. Could add Embley in and do Hager before or after Adkins. Need to look at what the impact on the Philippines cruises in 2009. Liz asked about Terrel project. Timing is still up in the air, there are other participants and they need x-band radar that will be installed on a west coast and an east coast global. There is a possibility of expanding this program, but it is not clear what that will be.

R/V Kilo Moana
229 day schedule with 174 funded days. Moum and Martinez are double-booked with Melville 2. Moum needs to go later than the requested May time frame. The Oct. days are good, but we don't know how early he could go. There are equipment issues. Moum claims he has to go from Honolulu to Honolulu. There is a possibility of a German group wanting 35 days in November for Honolulu to Honolulu. Might need a US CoPi or hull insurance. HOTS and CIMORE are combined 60 days total. 10 HOTS cruises 4 days each and 20 days for CIMORE. Dave will be PI for CIMORE and Matt Church will be new PI sometime in 2008. Hodgkiss needs July - August, which is not scheduled on Kilo Moana. is on Melville 3. Freeley NUIC is e 3 but not Kilo Moana.

R/V Melville - Rose Dufour
Melville
2 - eliminate as non starter.Melville 3/6 270 days. Problems are transiting back and forth between Guam and Philippines. Direction from Bob Houtman. is to take care of the Western Pacific, then Guam, then Hawaii then home or Alaska. Show the stand-down period on Melville.

R/V Atlantis - Liz Caporelli
Atlantis -3. EPR then maintenance/down time in San Diego. Luther and Nooner starting April 10th. Lonsdale permitting started, cruise no earlier than late April. Diorio gets 6 dives each cruise.

At JDF from 13 jul to 13 sep. Later trips to Guaymas and EPR. Luther is difficult to schedule in April because of conflicts. The fall can be bad because of being on the Fisher cruise. There is a possible cruise for the Chinese (COMRA) and private funding for Shank. Linda can't support an NSF-only schedule. Terrill has said he can't do his cruise on Atlantis, but we need to more carefully define the requirements with program officer.

R/V Knorr - Liz Caporelli
Problems with shipyard. 250 days total. Does not want to give up Cutter cruise on Knorr, will stay.

R/V Revelle - Rose Dufour
Revelle version 6, Does MAR. Big discussion about whether or not the Atlantis or Revelle would do Terrill. Need to clarify requirements!!!! Where Terrill goes will have an impact on schedule totals.

Permitting discussion.
Bill Lang thinks that it will take at least 9 months to process the IHA for Bangs. Andronicos and Toomey are pending information from DFO in Canada. The programatic EIS will hit public comment in a few weeks. Need to identify any remaining double bookings, eliminate them or only count one cruise. Need to identify stand downs in the schedules. Need to operating costs/daily rates Need information on carryforwards. Update spreadsheets. Do a 2008 LOI spreadsheet Work pending in the current panels might get funded for additional cruises.

Meeting adjourned