{"id":562,"date":"2012-10-30T13:43:24","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T17:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com\/?p=562"},"modified":"2022-03-18T16:55:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T16:55:05","slug":"noaa-ship-rainier-completes-years-surveys-along-alaskan-archipelago-heads-home-to-newport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/noaa-ship-rainier-completes-years-surveys-along-alaskan-archipelago-heads-home-to-newport\/","title":{"rendered":"NOAA Ship Rainier completes year\u2019s surveys along Alaskan archipelago, heads home to Newport"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOAA Ship Rainier<\/i><\/a> is due to arrive at its homeport in Newport, Ore., on November 1, completing the ship\u2019s 2012 hydrographic survey season. (Watch Rainier\u2019s<\/i> progress on NOAA\u2019s Ship Tracker<\/a>.) This survey season, Rainier<\/i> departed Newport on May 17 and spent her summer mapping 604 square nautical miles of the ocean floor in Alaska, stretching from Kodiak to the Shumagin Islands, along the Alaskan archipelago.
\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rainier has a long 1,769 nautical mile trip back to homeport in Newport, Oregon.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\n\u201cWe completed our last survey on October 24, and began the long 1,769 \u00a0nautical mile trip back to Oregon,\u201d said Rainier\u2019s<\/i> commanding officer, Cmdr. Richard Brennan. \u201cThe crew put a lot of great effort into their work, some of it under challenging weather conditions.”
\nRainier<\/i> and her four smaller survey vessels use multibeam echo-sounders to measure the depth of the ocean along her path, collecting millions of measurements. More than half of the area surveyed by Rainier<\/i> this summer had never been surveyed before, leaving large sections of nautical charts void of ocean depth measurements. Commercial shippers, passenger vessels, and fishing fleets need updated charts, which NOAA\u2019s Office of Coast Survey<\/a> will produce with the multibeam\u2019s precise and accurate measurements.
\n\u201cSimply put, we have better maps of the moon than of our oceans,\u201d said Rear Adm. Gerd Glang, director of Coast Survey. \u201cMuch of our knowledge of U.S. coastal seafloors dates from eras when ocean commerce was more limited, especially in Alaska.\u201d
\n\u201cAt a time when Alaskan waterways are facing unprecedented demands from maritime commerce, Rainier<\/i> is acquiring the data for navigational charts that are the foundation of the marine transportation system,\u201d Glang explained.
\nThe 231-foot Rainier<\/i>, one of the most modern and productive hydrographic survey platforms of its type in the world, is named for Mount Rainier, a massive volcanic cone rising 14,410 feet above sea level in Washington. At the time the ship was commissioned, in 1968, vessels of this class were named for geological features. Rainier <\/i>underwent a major repair period from Nov. 2009 to Jan. 2011, when new systems and equipment were installed.
\nThe ship\u2019s sophisticated seafloor mapping systems<\/a> allow researchers to acquire hydrographic data that is used to update the nation\u2019s nautical charts. Rainier<\/i> carries four survey launches that survey shallow, near-shore waters.
\nRainier\u2019s\u00a0<\/i>scientists, survey technicians, NOAA Corps<\/a> officers, and crew bring a wide range of navigational and hydrographical expertise to the mission.\u00a0Rainier has a total complement of 52 people: 12 NOAA Corps commissioned officers, 11 engineers, 14 deck\/boatswains, 9 hydrographic survey technicians (in addition to the officers, who are all hydrographers), four stewards, and two electronic technicians.
\nThe ship is part of NOAA\u2019s fleet of research and survey ships operated by NOAA\u2019s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations<\/a>.
\n
\"\"<\/a>
One of <\/em>Rainier\u2019s projects for 2012 was four surveys in the Shumagin Islands, constituting 2083.2 linear nautical miles of survey lines, and 112.85 square nautical miles of seafloor – most which were never surveyed before.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOAA Ship Rainier is due to arrive at its homeport in Newport, Ore., on November 1, completing the ship\u2019s 2012 hydrographic survey season. (Watch Rainier\u2019s progress on NOAA\u2019s Ship Tracker.) This survey season, Rainier departed Newport on May 17 and spent her summer mapping 604 square nautical miles of the ocean floor in Alaska, stretching … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “NOAA Ship Rainier completes year\u2019s surveys along Alaskan archipelago, heads home to Newport”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,20],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hydrographic-surveys","category-rainier","tag-alaska"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","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=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182444,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/182444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}