A picture is worth a thousand words – about updating Alaska charts

In late May, NOAA Ship Rainier officially started her Chatham Strait hydrographic survey project in southeast Alaska. It’s often difficult to imagine the age of many of the depth measurements depicted on Alaskan charts, but this short animation brings it home.
The older picture is U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer Patterson and her steam-powered launch Cosmos, surveying Gut Bay in 1897. (The USC&GS is one of NOAA’s predecessor agencies, and a direct predecessor of the Office of Coast Survey.) We juxtaposed Patterson with the Rainier, who is finally able to update the bathymetry — at the exact same location — 116 years later.

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The Patterson was under the command of Lt. Cmdr. E.K. Moore, U.S. Navy, while Coast Survey assistants carried out the scientific work. In today’s Coast Survey, a NOAA officer — on the Rainier, it is Cmdr. Richard Brennan — is both commander of the vessel and its chief scientific officer.

“It must have been a real challenge to get the Patterson into this tiny bay in 1897,” Cmdr. Brennan observed. “The opening to the bay is only about 100 yards wide — and seems narrower than that when you are in the middle of it, since the cliffs rise almost vertically on either side.”
“We had the benefit of surveying the very narrow entrance’s seafloor with complete multibeam sonar coverage, and had the use of radar and GPS to inform us about our exact location as we made our way through the incredibly tiny opening into this bay. The Patterson (a steam powered sailing vessel) would have had to do this visually with only a few lead line soundings across the entrance. This must have made for an exciting navigational experience!”
Credit for photo of Rainier: Ensign Damian Manda