Down to the sea; 8

Thank you. Very muting caves you know it seems. 19:15 Coates own ID and ordered it. And when I thought it could he tell it to us a promo Minesweeper. And I had to come here out here into an exploration I don't see Croatian vessel at that time in 1915. It is not completely an ocean and I think that for the future any price. Whatever its age and wherever you draw the line between the oceanographic and exploration. Just because Joe's ship the Calypso has to be one of the most famous vessels afloat today. Because of the part it has played in the numerable oceanographic projects. And because it has been so frequently described and pictured in books the press and on television. Captain Casto will talk about the Calypso will travel on one of the Navy's modern oceanographic research ships and will take a look at an unusual vessel called

Flip. As we survey ships of research on this edition of down to the sea. Notwithstanding all that has been said about the beauty of a ship under full sail there are very few who have ever seen a ship literally under all her sail. A ship coming in or going out of port with their ordinary sails and perhaps two or three stunning sails is commonly said to be under full sail. But a ship never has all her sail upon her except when she has a light steady breeze. Very nearly but not quite dead aft and so regular that it can be trusted and is likely to last for some time. Then with all her sails light and heavy and studying sails on each side a

low in the loft she is the most glorious moving object in the world. Such a sight. Very few even some will have been at sea a good deal have ever beheld her from the deck of your own vessel you cannot see her as you would a separate object. While we were in these tropics I went out to the end of the flying jib boom upon some duty and having finished it turned round and lay on the boom for a long time admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the deck I could look at the ship as a separate vessel and there rose up from the water supported only by a small black hole. A. Pyramid of canvas. Spreading out far beyond the hall and towering up almost as it seemed in the indistinct night air to the clouds. The sea was as still as an in like. A light trade wind was gently and steadily breathing from the stern the dark blue sky was studded with the tropical stars.

There was no sound but the rippling of the water under the stem. And the sails were spread out wide and high. The two lower studying sails stretching on each side far beyond the deck. The top mast studding sails like wings to the top sails. The top gallant studying sails spreading fearlessly out above them still higher the two royal studding sails looking like two kites flying from the same strain and highest of all the little skies sail the apex of the pyramid. Seeming actually to touch the stars and to be out of reach of human hands. So quiet too was the sea and so. Steady the breeze that if these sails had been sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas not even the quivering of the extreme edges of the sail so perfectly Were they distended by the brain. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me until he said for he too ruffled man of war's man as he was had been gazing at

the show he said have to himself. Still looking at the marble sails how quietly they do their work. In two years before the mast Richard Henry Dana beautifully described what is now an extremely rare sight a large ship under full sail on the high seas. In Dana's time occasional scientific journeys under sail we're opening new fields of knowledge about the world ocean and posing numerous questions for the oceanographers who would follow with well-equipped laboratories ships in the years ahead sailing ships are still an important part of any oceanographic fleet providing as they do an absolutely quiet platform for acoustic research. But for the most part the need to transport scientists and their equipment to all parts of the world under all weather conditions in relative comfort dictates the use of modern diesel powered vessels. Calypso all the research and exploration ship that has been associated with just gusto for so many years provides a good starting point for a program about ships

of research for many of today's accepted oceanographic research techniques designs and equipment were first experimented with aboard this vessel down to the sea reporter Ken Kramer. Asked Captain Castille what it was that made Calypso unique. I think that what is most unique in Cape Cod is I mean this trade here and the fact that it is a vessel that is. Actually found by a nonprofit organization and he's running particularly on private money. So we have been mobilized and it was very forceful to use. All the possible ways to find vast sums of money necessary to use such a vessel for science and thought I'd try starvation.

So when we can fail to do ship in 1950 after us things we did where to install very new devices for example and I don't see of salvation chambre in front of the bow under the keel. Another item that we introduce was a diving wealth with a hole in the center of the ship so that divers could go in and out and even in bad weather and in tough conditions especially when very cold weather when the most difficult part is when you come out of the water and I need to be frozen by cold wind. These two devices have been adopted by several ships. Apart from that the ship is well equipped for recording sound and stopped when I go away at small speed it is underwater sounds of course it is also equipped with scores of vision

cameras and we have a number of money toes in various parts of the vessel including by ancient inebriation chambre and they and the mess and the diving all. We also are when he quipped to a Saudi on appliances navigation systems and I see an echo sounders also a unique feature on the fly such a small vessel found on the 60 ton so only to be able to handle exploration Vico submarines like a diving saucers. We started in 1959 which was the first diving saucer in existence. And having two people one pilot and one observer and being able to dive to. One

thousand one hundred and fifty feet. And since then we have two smaller units on board diving socials for one man by letting being a fairly easy. We can have scientists but at least this two saps and we think it is more efficient to have two small set ups in operation at the same time than one two seater. For safety as well as for my fish and say so for a small vessel like this to have. Decompression chambers diving there. Getting I'd see Chamas they are cornered. He I think. To most of the decompression channelized he sees before he and diving as well as kills as well as older conventional Oceano are free to use it is of course quite something that needed a

lot of care and ingenuity to get all these things in such a small volume so it's a very packed ship. Little lab space because we think that. Most of the work should be done on a speech he mentioned on the samples that we bring back this ship has been working extensively and intense here since 1950 the average male age every year 6000 and no tick of my 19 year olds now almost 20. So it has been almost everywhere is they going places that Calypso is certainly one of the busiest and one of the best known ships in the broader Reno of Oceanography. Another famous vessel involved in oceanographic research is flip a vessel that one really has to see to believe. We visited flip while it was tied to a pier in San Diego harbor. We thought

first to Richard Wilson ships boats and then communications officer he explained how this long cylindrical vessel is towed to the area where research is to be conducted. Then a portion of it flooded much like a submarine causing that into a sink and the entire cylinder to assume a vertical position with only the research and living area remaining above the surface of the sea is classified as what a ship. Barge your little one. What is a technical term. I research platform the actual designation is R.P. flip research platform flip. In looking at it when it's in a horizontal position it's three hundred fifty feet long and at that point it doesn't appear to be a five three hundred fifty five feet is the total length of which in the vertical position 300 feet is below the surface of the water 55 feet sticking above. We are not a platform in the horizontal attitude once we become vertical then we become a stable operating electronic platform.

A platform in which. Several different scientific groups use. One that one desires to use it he loads his gear on we use a crane for this. Goes it goes out and does his work. When he is done. Come back in the next does it. And so on and so forth. We asked Wilson what effect Flip had on ships that might pass near it in the open ocean. There was an occasion where we were in the process of flipping and we were just about to say halfway to the vertical latitude and. As the story goes it was a commercial vessel trader who call the Coast Guard and reported a sinking vessel. Of course this raised a few hairs here and there and then another story which we like to tell is what the Coast Guard classifies Phlip as. And we are a three hundred fifty five foot pleasure craft.

Dr. Frederick Fisher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography the organization that operates flipper gave us a good description of the unusual research vessel. It really is a man and boy drifts in the vertical position out in the ocean with no power of its own. And unless it's anchored to the bottom of the ocean it follows the wind and the currents. How stable is it when it's in the vertical position out there. Well the up and down motion which we call the heaving motion is very small in fact it's been out in waves 30 to 35 feet high and the measured response was of the order of inches just one or two inches or three inches. Flip is essentially a long pipe that stands up vertically in the ocean. It is not a straight cylinder that is not a straight pipe it was designed so that it would be more stable than a straight pipe in the ocean. And the idea is this that if you had a straight pipe in the ocean that was. 300

feet underneath the surface of the water it would have a resonant period of about 18 seconds by that I mean if we were to push it so it would go up and down it would bob up and down once every 18 seconds. Flip is actually tapered it is 20 feet in diameter from 150 feet to 300 feet below the surface and above that then it tapers down gradually over 90 feet to a diameter of 12 and a half feet. This tapering allows look to be much more stable in the ocean and it's resonant period is 27 seconds. We like to have the resonant period of flip as far away as possible from the period of the waves out in the ocean. And most waves in the ocean are say between 6 and 15 seconds. So by removing the resonant period of flip quite far away from the wave period in the ocean then we acquire much greater stability.

Now flip can also operate or is towed in the horizontal position. And I would imagine you have articles on board such as a kitchen stove in a sink in. How are these mounted so that they'll be functional in both positions. The stove the refrigerator the sink and then and so forth are all on a tray and so that they can see it can swing either in the horizontal or the vertical. It can swing back and forth without any problem and we use them in both sides or both their attitudes. All of your oceanographic research equipment is similarly trunnion. No the engines we have three engines on board to supply the electrical power and they are also in training as well as a gyro compass but nearly all electronic equipment can work on its side as well as in the vertical position so we mount nearly all our electronics parts including radios and scientific equipment on their side so when we are in the vertical position then they're in the proper attitude. Our radar for example is mounted on its side now including.

Your scientists and the crew it takes to operate flip how many people actually would be on board. Well for any kind of extended work 16 is about the maximum number of people a crew of six and a scientific party of around 10. Can you describe the sensation of going from a horizontal to a vertical position there do you get completely disoriented in the process. Well gravity is pretty good at keeping you oriented and actually when we first flipped it open day by day in the Hood Canal area up near Seattle. We were wearing life jackets life belts and safety helmets and now it's such a routine operation and so smooth it's more or less like an elevator ride in a good elevator that is. That people come on board without being told what to do and they gravity tells them what to do and they just simply shift their position as we go over and what we asked Dr. Fisher was the primary purpose in building a vessel like flip.

Well a flip was built primarily to study the effects of the ocean on sound waves in the nearest analogy to this is that most people are familiar with looking at the twinkling of stars. It's the variations in the atmosphere as well as dust and so forth that produces this twinkling of the stars. They call it optical simulation scientifically. Well in the ocean there are temperature changes most people that go swimming are familiar with going from a warm patch of water to a cold patch of water while sound travels faster in warm water than it doesn't hold water and causes the sound waves or sound wave front to bend and this bending produces what is the same thing as the optical twinkling only we call it acoustic twinkling or cental lation. And so we needed to build flip in order to have a steady enough platform to make these measurements flip of course is so steady that it's almost like being on land and this has a tremendous advantage over being on a small ship that's tossing about because there you can become exhausted and tired out just from trying to keep yourself

straight up during the day. Accommodating to the roll of the ship. As useful as it is we're certain specific research projects Philip certainly has its limitations. The most oceanographic work is still necessary to accommodate to the roll of the ship. And it's not too difficult to accommodate to a modern oceanographic research ship like the US an artist dog or a sleek white 284 vessel attached to the U.S. Naval oceanographic office Pacific support group San Diego. We spent some time aboard this tiger at sea as the guest of Project Director Kerry in Rome. And while leaving the harbor we talk to Kerry and asked him to describe the ship for us. She's about 200 feet. 40 feet. Across. However. I. Think. There's a crew of 26 and mass here.

And. The Saudis to. 15. Times. When I point out that this is a relatively new research ship on the world oceanographic seniors and I actually was delivered from the construction. Phase in February of this last year. Now was that is Tiger design to do any specific type of research work or is it went to my college general purpose. That's all. The designation as an eagle or shared. Her. Formal title. US ministers Nygard. Northwest. Igor's nans for an auxiliary general motion and remembering the service is. Designed to be able to handle. Virtually any type of investigation of the physical chemical biological. To. The heart of any survey operation.

Is the phenomena or systems on board. These are the. Instruments which allow you to determine what the depth of water and. This is. Because this is important as it is we have two separate systems that can provide this information for a. Sonic pulse is generated. And. We mark the time that it that is generated in the water and then we. Measure the time differential until we receive the echo. This sound comes off the bottom and is. Forced to. Be translated into it. Now. That's one of our basic systems. We have. Also. Bored what. What might be referred to as an electronic environmental sampling system. We have a remote probe to catch to the end of a 30 30000 foot. Oceanographic conductor cable.

Lowered his package over the side and their sensors in the maggots which. Provide. Information. On the the data the temperature the salinity the sound the last of the. Of the water and the various steps in the lower and this information is fed up the. Wire which I mentioned and then is processed. In the laboratory through a. System of bandpass filters. And. Electronic multiplying counters and recording instruments and so forth. In connection with the phenomena as this is. The real electronic card in the vessel. He's got 10000 miles. Cruising capability. And. That's with full fuel tanks. In addition. She has a very day. Station keeping capability in other words to. The stores on board the 330. Of course. Anyone who starts with a shape up tell you that this is the best. We feel that ours is the

best natural right. But. We. Do feel so with a certain amount of justification. To the stanger represents the. Very latest in the decor shop class design this and say she's what is referred to as the third generation. Of the of this design. I'd say. We're good simply by by virtue of the fact that then we've been provided with the latest in technology has to offer. On the bridge we talk to first officer Terry ruff and ask him about the unusual steering device located in the bow of the ship. It's called a bow thruster. It's made by Western gear in a West Coast and it's. Very similar. In appearance to an outboard motor except it's larger because it has to move a bigger ship than around more normal. Did you know House position and mine are flush with the hall but it doesn't add any additional drag and then when you're actually on station 1 speed is not important but

positioning is when you lower the bow thruster and rotate through 360 degrees. It has a hundred eighty five horsepower engine electric engine and. That we operate from a gas turbine driven generator to isolate it from the main board so we can use this by itself without using the main engine. And with it we can we can actually steer the ship as an experiment. On one of the other ships of this type they gotten away from port without using the rudder or the main engine just by training the bow thruster to one side or the other and. Adjusting the speed they were actually able to steer the ship all the way out of port is only good at slow speeds up to 4 or 5 knots. But hand on station keeping station positioning. It is essential to the operation because most of your instrument packages will be hanging from the stern so it's not really safe to use the main

engine because the rudder is so very thin. Main propeller is so close to the stern that there is a very good chance of getting your. Wire to the instrument package wrapped up around the shaft. So. This alleviates that problem altogether by just using a propeller in the forward part of the ship. And this in conjunction with the rudder on a cycle we have an active rudder may actually have a collar with the nozzle in the rudder so that you can make the ship go forward half sidewise or you Will Bleakley like they call it crabbing and you can maneuver the ship any way that the scientific personnel desire to maintain a station here over. And I bet they want to know why studies such as the seamount or something like this or if you're actually conducting a search operation for a second vessel. You know you mentioned it's powered by the turbine engine. Is this a. Unique power plant to the

ship and what is the purpose of it. Well there again it's unique to this type of ship. The purpose the main purpose is we like I was just telling you describing its use for the bow thruster but its main purpose is so that you can use just the gas turbine is just a motor to drive a generator. Now we take the power from that put into the main board. And then we can cut out all the machinery below the water line your your motors generators pumps auxiliary equipment to your refrigeration equipment for a certain number of hours so that we can run out of what they call silent running the gas turbine is a very noisy engine because of its position in the ship. This noise is not transmitted through the hall. So were doing any kind of acoustic. Work. The noise. Level. From the gas terminal does not interfere with their operation a sinus operation down below. What is this. This this people are listening to here. Right now this is a UQM for you QC excuse me is that underwater

communications there. It's just like a radio telephone but for underwater if you like I'll try to talk to the bottom and see of the bottom of the back if this will just be an echo off the bottom. Hello I don't know if you know this more clearly. Hello there. All right now the sound we heard was actually bouncing back from the ocean floor correct we send this out through it to a transducer and it bounces off the ocean floor and comes back and is picked up to the hydrophone in the same unit. It's a transducer hydrophone are the same thing except when you change it from a transmitter to receiver or just the opposite. Now this is also the Stalinist type of ship so that when on the rare occurrences that we do operate with submarines and some kind of research ventures that we can talk to them without them having to come back up to the surface. It's only good for a short distance away but how much of a distance I'd say of the two miles and in good weather. Give us if you have a lot a lot of wind so that you have a lot of

surface noise you wouldn't get much over there. In other words in a similar symbol within that distance they can hear you as fair as we heard you hear as we are at the bottom Yes that's the thing you hear. That's our phenomena that's the sound going on. If famine as we've seen we don't hear. The response because the response again back I don't think I'm working at an hour hydrophone is not sensitive enough to differentiate between a few with your view and that the scientists have in the lab. Well they could have been there getting a continuous readout of them at about that time we encountered a school of some 200 purposes and with the ship's listening devices we were able to eavesdrop on their chatter beneath the sea. The various squeals and whistle like sounds you were hearing I made my purposes. Around the world there are hundreds of vessels from simple barges to elaborate floating

laboratories all making vital contributions to man's understanding of the vast world ocean. Today we looked at three of those vessels on down to the sea. These programs are produced by a public radio station KQED SFM San Diego State College. They are written and prepared for broadcast by your host Tom McManus with the assistance of Ken Kramer traditional music of the sea is arranged and performed by Sam Hinton. And selected narrative and poetic passages are read by Cliff Kirk. Production of down to the sea was made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is the national educational radio network.