{"id":170501,"date":"2017-10-11T10:37:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com\/?p=170501"},"modified":"2026-03-10T20:19:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:19:45","slug":"noaa-ship-rainier-surveys-channel-islands-to-support-safe-navigation-and-habitat-mapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/noaa-ship-rainier-surveys-channel-islands-to-support-safe-navigation-and-habitat-mapping\/","title":{"rendered":"NOAA Ship Rainier surveys Channel Islands to support safe navigation and habitat mapping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NOAA Ship <\/span>Rainier <\/span><\/i>recently arrived off the Santa Barbara coast to complete hydrographic surveys at NOAA\u2019s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary<\/a> (CINMS) as part of the Southern California Seafloor Mapping Initiative<\/a>. Over the next month, the ship will use their new multibeam echo sounders<\/a> to support safe navigation and update nautical charts for the sanctuary. In addition to providing data for crucial nautical chart updates, the surveys will also generate backscatter imagery, which the sanctuary uses for habitat mapping.<\/span>
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\"NOAA
NOAA Ship Rainier anchored in Cuyler Harbor adjacent to San Miguel Island, California.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


Up until 2014, more than 50 percent of the sanctuary was not charted at a suitable scale for making informed resource management decisions. NOAA launched the Southern California Seafloor Mapping Initiative to address this information gap and identify priority areas to survey. To begin filling this data gap, NOAA relied on its local vessels equipped with ship-mounted sonars optimized for fisheries research, as well as state and federal partner resources. Coast Survey\u2019s autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was also used to collect data in deep sea coral areas. Fast forward to the fall of 2017, and just less than 25 percent of the sanctuary\u2014 primarily shallow and near shore areas\u2014remains to be charted using modern technology. <\/span>
\u201cThe near-shore areas within the sanctuary were last surveyed using lead line techniques in the 1930s,\u201d said Cmdr. Ben Evans, commanding officer of NOAA Ship <\/span>Rainier<\/span><\/i>. \u201cThe technology we have today enables us to improve our nautical charts and navigation safety while at the same time providing the critical habitat data the sanctuary needs to manage its resources.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Geographic<\/a>
Geographic extent of mapped waters within the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary boundary. Credit: CINMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\"Geographic
Geographic extent of mapped waters within the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary boundary. Credit: CINMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rainier <\/i>is one of NOAA\u2019s four large hydrographic ships and is equipped with four survey launches designed to survey shallow water areas. This equipment, coupled with the surveying expertise on board, makes Rainier <\/i>the ideal vessel to support this initiative.
Rainier <\/span><\/i>started its survey work in the sanctuary around San Miguel Island, the westernmost island in the Channel Islands chain. San Miguel is situated off the coast of Point Conception, where the open Pacific Ocean meets the Santa Barbara Channel. The area is windswept, as evidenced by the ribbons of sand seen up the island\u2019s hillsides and rough seas off the coast.<\/span>
With safety and quality data collection top priorities for <\/span>Rainier<\/span><\/i>, two important tasks were completed before the vessel commenced survey operations around the island. <\/span>Rainier <\/span><\/i>deployed a skiff\u2014a small boat with a 4-person crew\u2014to perform inshore reconnaissance to determine the safety limits for conducting inshore mapping. \u00a0This is particularly important as some features around the shoreline may not have been charted accurately or at all during the previous lead line surveys. Put simply, the crew searched for hazards such as rocks and thick kelp beds at low tide so the survey launches can avoid them while surveying at high tide.<\/span>
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\"Lt.
Lt. Scott Broo, operations officer for NOAA Ship Rainier, provides the morning safety briefing and instructions before the ship deploys its launches and crew for a day of surveying.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Rainier
Rainier survey launch (RA-4) with Jason Kinyon (boatswain group leader), Greg Gahlinger (senior survey tech), Barry Jackson (senior survey tech), and Bryan Costa (physical scientist and backscatter expert) head to the north side of San Miguel Island to survey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


NOAA ship Rainier<\/em>, a 49-year-old survey vessel, is part of the NOAA fleet of ships operated, managed, and maintained by NOAA\u2019s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations<\/a>, which includes commissioned officers of the NOAA Corps<\/a>, one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and civilian wage mariners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOAA Ship Rainier recently arrived off the Santa Barbara coast to complete hydrographic surveys at NOAA\u2019s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) as part of the Southern California Seafloor Mapping Initiative. Over the next month, the ship will use their new multibeam echo sounders to support safe navigation and update nautical charts for the sanctuary. In … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “NOAA Ship Rainier surveys Channel Islands to support safe navigation and habitat mapping”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nautical-charts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170501"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185507,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170501\/revisions\/185507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}