News and Updates
By ENS Linda Junge
NOAA Ship Fairweather has been busy during the last couple months. Three major activities have broken up the peak summer months of this field season. Continue reading “NOAA Ship Fairweather in western Alaska: A season of searching and survey”
On July 22, 2017, the crew of NOAA Ship Rainier hosted a change of command while at United States Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Alaska.
Commander Benjamin Evans accepted command of Rainier, relieving Commander John Lomnicky in a ceremony led by Captain Keith Roberts, commanding officer of NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) Marine Operations Center-Pacific. Distinguished guests included Captain Richard Brennan, chief of NOAA Office of Coast Survey’s Hydrographic Surveys Division, Mr. Greg Kaplan, Military and Veterans Affairs liaison for Senator Lisa Murkowski, Captain Jeffery Good, commanding officer United States Coast Guard (USCG) Base Kodiak, Commander Michael Levine, commanding officer of NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson, and Commander Daniel Rogers, executive officer of United States Coast Guard Base Kodiak. Continue reading “NOAA Ship Rainier holds change of command ceremony”
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey hosted the first NOAA open house on nautical cartography on Friday, July 7th. The event featured posters, presentations, and tours focusing on nautical cartography, highlighting the field of charting and GIS. Industry partners such as ESRI, CARIS, Fugro Palegos, Inc., and IIC Technologies, international mapping groups such as Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) and General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), government agencies such as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy, and many international charting offices were in attendance. The open house welcomed a total of 200 visitors, representing 24 countries. Continue reading “NOAA hosts first open house on nautical cartography”
NOAA Ship Rainier continues hydrographic survey operations in Chiniak Bay, near Kodiak, Alaska. As of June 1, 2017, Rainier and her survey launches have surveyed 2,025 nautical miles in the Spruce Island, Long Island, Middle Bay, Kalsin Bay, Isthmus Bay, and offshore Cape Chiniak areas. The total distance surveyed is about as long as the Mississippi River. Continue reading “Surveying, rescue drills, and an open house—NOAA Ship Rainier has been busy!”
Following the scheduled winter repair period, Fairweather is kicking off the 2017 field season in Tlevak Strait; the waterway between Dall Island and Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. This area was last surveyed between 1900 and 1939, and the lead-lines used at the time to determine depths were susceptible to omission of rocks and other features in an area. Using the latest innovations in hydrographic technology, Fairweather will be resurveying these areas with complete coverage multibeam echo sounder bathymetry. This allows Fairweather to identify any rocks or shoal features missed in prior surveys, increasing the safety for local communities, whose economies and livelihoods are dependent on maritime transportation of goods. Continue reading “NOAA Ship Fairweather uses new technology to improve survey efficiency”
Whether navigating an oil tanker, cruise ship, fishing vessel, sailboat, or any craft, the mariner requires a suite of navigation charts that are consistent and easy to use. The public feedback we received to the National Charting Plan regarding the “sunset of paper” charts (p. 26) highlights two navigation products in particular, NOAA paper nautical charts and raster navigational chart (RNC).
Continue reading “NOAA clarifies National Charting Plan vision for production of NOAA paper charts and RNCs”
Kodiak Island is the 2nd largest island in the United States; it is part of the Kodiak Island Archipelago, a group of islands roughly the size of Connecticut. Due to the island’s location in the Gulf of Alaska and North Pacific Ocean, Kodiak is ranked as third in commercial fishing ports in the U.S. in terms of value of seafood landed. In 2015, the Port of Kodiak was responsible for 514 million pounds of fish and $138 million of product. More than one-third of the jobs in Kodiak are related to the fishing industry.
The Port of Kodiak is home to more than 700 commercial fishing vessels, and has more than 650 boat slips and three commercial piers that can dock vessels up to 1,000 feet. In addition to fishing, Kodiak is the hub of the Gulf of Alaska container logistics system, serving the southwest Alaskan communities with consumer goods and outbound access to the world’s fish markets. Continue reading “NOAA Ship Rainier surveys the waters around Kodiak Island”
Sandy shoals in certain near shore areas shift continuously and present a danger to navigation. It is logistically impossible to keep nautical charts current using the traditional survey methods when the bottom contours change so rapidly. NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey leverages remote sensing data in new ways to derive bathymetry for the purposes of updating nautical charts in dynamic coastal areas. An exciting new method Coast Survey is exploring is X-band radar wave imaging. Marine radar is not a new technology, however, there are advantages to exploring old technology for new purposes. Many NOAA vessels and other coastal installations are already equipped with the hardware to facilitate this type of data acquisition. Continue reading “Teaming up with small business to expand hydrographic technology”
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey released a new electronic navigation chart (NOAA ENC®) of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and the Merrimack River (US5MA1AM). With this new chart, recreational boaters now can safely navigate the Merrimack River from the entrance at Newburyport all the way to Haverhill, just in time for boating season.
Haverhill is a historic New England town that has recently undergone an urban renewal with new federal, state, and private investment in the downtown and waterfront areas. Until now, this area of the river was not depicted at an appropriate scale on a nautical chart for recreational boaters to navigate safely. The community of Haverhill recognized the importance of recreational boaters to their local economy and led a grassroots effort to have a new chart created. Continue reading “Collaborative effort to create new nautical chart returns recreational boaters to Haverhill, Massachusetts”
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey maintains the nautical charts and publications for U.S. coasts and the Great Lakes. This is over a thousand charts covering 95,000 miles of shoreline and 3.4 million square nautical miles of waters. Measuring depths and determining new dangers to navigation in this large area is a monumental job given the seafloor is constantly changing.
One of NOAA Coast Survey’s biggest tasks during the winter months is to plan hydrographic survey projects for the coming field season. Survey planners consider requests from stakeholders such as marine pilots, local port authorities, the Coast Guard, and the boating community, and also consider other hydrographic priorities in determining where to survey and when. Continue reading “NOAA releases 2017 hydrographic survey season plans”