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Ocean Observation while the ship went and steamed its track lines with a multi-beam to determine what was there In the main part of the chan- nel. So it?s a combination of equipment and the specialists on board to collect and process that data, then turn that into the information necessary for the Coast Guard to reopen the port. Devany said partnerships are important. ?We work together through the International Research Ship Operators, IRSO. We have an annual meeting and we come together to talk about best practices, where we?re at, what have we learned from ship design. A good example would be the relative merits of mod- ernizing a 20- or 30-year-old hull versus recapitalizing? Are your maintenance costs going to become so high that it makes more sense to get rid of that vessel and either replace it or nd another way to do business? The European community has a barter system, where they are able to trade time among platforms. They have the same issues as we do when it comes to the cost of fuel and people. So, if you have, for example, a Dutch ship operating somewhere and there are four buoys that I need to pick up near where they are, and they have ve buoys to be picked up near where I am, then we can work out a trade. That collaboration includes the NATO Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation in La Spezia, Italy, which op- erated two research vessels. ?We?ve discussed having their Global-class ship, the Alliance, do some work for us in the Atlantic, and perhaps we can support them in some way,? Devany said. ?We?ll share our project plans and see if there is some commonality there. We?re talking with NATO about commonalities that we have in mission areas or data sets that we both need. In the end, most of this data is owing across all the nations; and it?s information that everybody needs, es- pecially if you start talking about climate and what?s going to happen with either an ice-diminished Arctic, sheries or transportation.? Devany said operating and maintaining the NOAA eet is a challenge. ?You?re always looking at the budget numbers and trying to match the budget with mission. But we?ve been sustaining very well. We have to manage within what we have. In terms of ship operations, the shoreside is more heavily civilian-dependent. We run our engineering and ship repair with a port engineer, and the work is all contracted out. We don?t have our own shipyards and we don?t have our own repair guys. Training is very similar. We contract out most of our training. For most of our training for the CivMars, we send them to MITAGS (the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies), MEBA (Marine Engineers? Bene cial Association) or we send them to SIU (Seafarers International Union). They all have great schools and provide a standard- ized set of training.Devany said the proudest moments for the NOAA eet have been in the response to natural disasters and events like Deep- water Horizon and Hurricane Irene. ?We had to get ships to where they were needed quickly and ready to go to work. During Irene, we had to get the Chesapeake Bay opened back up again. After Superstorm Sandy, we had to get in there and clear that harbor and get it open so that people and commerce, can go back and forth. We ew damage assessments on the King Air. People were able to look at the imagery from that ight up on the website and were instantly able to go in and see if their house was still there, or what damage was done to their neighborhood or a relative?s community. I think that?s where we?ve been able to step in and make a difference when the nation needed us.? ?I think we?re responsive, exible, and adaptable,? Devany said. ?That?s what I ask my folks to be, and I think they ably step up to the charge.? Scripps Institution of Oceanography The White House Federal Oceanographic Fleet Status Re- port more of a status report than a strategic plan or an analysis with conclusions. It looks at all of the federally funded re-search vessels, including special mission hydrographic survey or sheries research ship, such as those operated by NOAA or the Navy. ?Scripps operates four ships; more than anyone else in the academic research eet,? said Bruce Appelgate, associ- ate director for ship operations and marine technical support with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. ?We are able to share these facilities with institutions and scientists all over the U.S. and the world.? ?We?re seeing a trend over the past ve years, with fewer and fewer days at sea on our ships,? said Appelgate. ?This isn?t because there?s decline in demand or need for these facilities. The demand for ship time has remained consistently strong, both in terms of the number of scientists who need to go to sea, and in the number of days they request to conduct their work.? According to Appelgate, the reduction in underway time is driven by costs, which have gone up steadily over the past ten years. Why? ?The reduction in ship usage has been driven by reduced funding, not reduced demand. Global Class research vessels have experienced annual cost increases over the past 10 years of about six percent. For comparable commercial vessels, that number is about seven percent. At the same time our most sig- ni cant sponsor of oceanographic research, the National Sci-ence Foundation, has only been able to fund increases of about three percent per year. When ship time is available, there?s tremendous demand ? for our own institutionally-supported ship time we recently received four times more requests than we could support. NSF gets more than three times as many requests as they can now support.? In the face of budget constraints, Scripps makes every effort to attract and retain career mariners. ?We?re very motivated to improve quality of life issues for our mariners. That?s why they stay with us. We do fascinating work involving unique skills and ports of call, and our mariners like the kind of work we get to do. The quality of our mariners, and the dedication they have to conducting important scienti c research, is of tremendous value to the scientists and funding agencies who September 201360 MTRMTR #7 (50-65).indd 60MTR #7 (50-65).indd 608/22/2013 11:48:53 AM8/22/2013 11:48:53 AM
