from:ax07 to:lu02@noaa.gov subject:Re: Re Status and updates Hi Pedro, Thanks for sending the messages. Yeah, it didn't take long to figure out it was wind, lol. Though when it first started happening, the wind wasn't so bad so I was worried it was something else. We are moving much slower but yesterday the arrival date was already changed to the 3rd. Hopefully this doesn't delay us further, but I plan on asking the captain at dinner what the status is. As for going out, it's not too bad for going out as long as there's someone with me. Alone would be too dangerous for sure. Since we're moving slower, it's more time between. But I am probably going to stick to only doing a second drop if the first was promising. Had some good ones earlier but it started back up again. Probably just luck at this point. If I get down to the main deck and see it's worse, I'll wait. Best regards, Zach lu02 wrote: from:lu02 to:ax07@noaa.gov subject:Re: Status and updates Hi Zach, I forwarded the message to you so you can have a record and forwarded the short message you wrote like you asked. I looked at the profiles and they are definitely bad due to wind so don't worry about blaming it on anything else. At this point I don't think it's worth going outside until things get better, it's only data and the last thing we want is an accident. Has the weather affected your ETA? Stay safe, Pedro ax07 wrote: from:ax07 to:lu02@noaa.gov subject:Status and updates Hey Pedro, Just wanted to give you a status update. As of early this morning, when the winds started seemingly out of nowhere, we apparently had 40 knots sustained winds with gusts of up to 50. A few hours later (5-6), they had settled to 35 knots sustained, unknown gusts but I'm sure it's 40-50 as well. It had gotten slightly better so I was doing multiple drops to *try* to get enough of a good profile. When I last went down to reload, the winds were too strong to be able to move the launcher to the leeward side of the boat. I'm worried at this point that I'm even going to be able to reload the launcher next time it is empty. When I started having issues, I went with the standard 3 probes and then wait until the next drop. After that, with the probes I have left, I went down to two tries per drop to enable me to be able to make deployments the rest of the way based on how many probes I have left. After all that, on the second deployment attempt of 2-per deployment, it was clear that I wasn't going to be getting a good profile, so now I'm on a one chance second deployment. If I get close to a good profile, I'll try again and hope there's a lull in the wind enough to get a good profile. However, if the wind just murders the profile immediately as my last two profiles have been, I will just wait until the next drop. otherwise it's just wasting probes on bad profiles. I'll be keeping up with the bridge to see when the winds will die down. Estimates this morning were sometime this evening. If the captain does not let me out to reload the launcher, I'll have to deal with gaps as there's nothing I'll be able to do. As of right now, I'd say it's only safe enough to go to the launcher with another person for safety. Hopefully it gets better soon, but I suspect not, so we can expect a bad chunk of data. Please send this to my NOAA email so I have a record of it. If you can, please also let people (Gustavo, Shenfu, Francis, Uli) know what's going on and what my plans are. I think that all of what I've said above is understandable, but I'll sum up if you want a quick one. The ship started encountering heavy winds (sustained 40 knots, gusts of 50+knots) early this morning ship time. I tried to make some changes, turning the launcher into the wind, etc. This seemed to work for a little bit, I suspect there was a temporary lull in the wind or at least the gusts. Now, as the day begins, I'm having harder and harder time getting a good profile. Due to the estimated probes I have remaining in stock and approximate number remaining needed to deploy, I'm only able to do one additional launch after the scheduled one. Recently, the profiles have been bad from the beginning. So, to conserve probes and not waste them on bad deployments, I've gone to a system where I evaluate the initial drop and if it doesn't look like it's going to get more than a few meters before having an issue, I'm leaving it at one. This is also because I worry that soon the Captain will no longer let me go to the stern to refill the launcher and frivolous drops will accelerate that. I know this is long, but thanks in advance. I hope you check it sometime today and can forward on my above paragraph. With luck, the wind will clear faster than anticipated so that I can make good deployments today.