Did 44066 Go Dark?

Yesterday, Feb 26, I went online to check out the status of the latest drifting 44066/TT4 buoy.
It has been consistently drifting pretty Easterly for the past month transmitting good data.
Of course who really needs this data? It is so far away and in the middle of the Atlantic, but it is fun tracking it.  Having been involved from the beginning I feel connected and like to keep an eye out and share info for those of you who are interested. Getting this buoy deployed was major cooperation among government agencies and us ocean using stakeholders.

As of yesterday ( see post below), I posted a last line on the post something about a contest.
I was excited about bringing some late winter online fun to readers.

So, today I go on line to see what the ocean conditions were and how they might have subsided.

You can imagine my shock when I noticed that the last data upload from the buoy was one hour after
my last view and NOTHING was transmitted more than an hour later. It appears that the equipment has failed, again, probably due to the 40mph winds and 25 foot waves hitting her for several hours. Maybe she got tipped over, dunked or smashed on a wave wall. Maybe a passing ship nicked her but no way of knowing that. But that is probably unlikely since the Bermuda Cargo Lines spotted her and verified that her light was working. BCL also verified that they were able to spot her on radar for miles so other ocean going ships would have the same capability. The reason for not seeing updated data on the NDBC website is unclear but my worst fears of a damaged buoy are beginning to surface, or subsurface as the case may be!

Here are the last observations on the NDBC site yesterday. I separated them so you could see the
conditions and changes.

YYYY MM DD hh      LAT       LON  WD WSPD  GST WVHT  DPD  BARO   ATMP  WTMP  

                                 deg  kts  kts   ft  sec   mb    degC  degC 

Data found this morning 1 hour after posting latest position. Last posting.

2012 02 26 14  38.0449  -61.9210 297 29.3 38.5 25.7 13.8 1013.6  12.0  19.2 

Data used to determine location of 44066 Feb 26   

2012 02 26 13  38.0528  -61.9477 291 27.2 43.5 25.0 12.9 1013.1  10.9  19.2  

This is such a strange development. Having just been somewhat optimistic about the  buoy continuing to transmit after almost 2 months of drifting, it now seems that she has gone dark.

This needs to be verified by NDBC. It is possible that for some reason the servers at NDBC are down, but we'll just have to wait and see.

This information will be updated when NDBC clarifies the situation.

As earlier reported there are two 44066 buoys drifting out in the middle of the Atlantic; one is the latest still transmitting and the other went silent a year ago. I don't know the last time that this has occurred in the NDBC program with two buoys breaking off the same area and drifting along similar lines towards Europe.
I used the Google image from last year and created a pushpin for the latest position.
You can see both the new 44066 26 Feb 2012 and the 44066 24Jan 2011 with the X next to the yellow pushpin icons on the Google map below. The Current position today has the drifting buoy in 61 degree water and fighting 25 foot waves and gusts to 43mph for part of today.
We will see if she survives the winds and seas which tormented and eventually took down the first 44066 buoy last January. The new buoy is about 700 miles from its mooring near the Tip of the Hudson. Last year the other buoy went dark about 850 miles away. The current buoy latitude is along the 38th line and last year's was close to this line as well. Both have been sucked into the Gulf Stream and subject to the Westward movement of the currents which predominately head towards
the Azores.
Interestingly, if you read the recent story of the Regulator that had been swamped 3 years off of Cape Cod it was found about a month ago on the North Coast of Spain! It traveled 3 years before making landfall! It was covered with barnacles and was stripped by the severe weather of any instrumentation. See story:
http://www.regulatormarine.com/tales-sdouglas.html

So who knows where this one will land.

If she stays alive for a while longer I may run some kind of contest asking for readers to guess the lat/lon where she might stop transmitting or the spot where she will make landfall. Anyone wanting to donate a cool prize, jump in.

JFK Re-Visited, Creep or Worse?

 

As a father of young women who have just graduated college I am a bit confused by the lack of interest JFK's affair with a 19-year old intern has had on young people. I have many conflicting feelings about what allegedly happened. Where is the conversation, concern or basic interest in this salacious relationship by the young women and men across America? 

I am a fairly liberal individual with a great respect for freedom and accepting consenting behavior between adults. But in this case I feel like the president abused one of my own daughters,“girls’, who are between youth and adulthood. If this account is true, and no one had come forward to deny it, how does one of the most powerful men in the world justify coercing a young, inexperienced virgin into a first sexual encounter in his own bedroom in the White House? I certainly can get past his other affairs with contemporaries or experienced adults but to use the power of his office to influence a young woman’s decision is really a poor character flaw. It makes me angry to think that men in power can be so disconnected to ethical and moral behavior. I feel outraged by his presumptuous, arrogance and predatory behavior.

We are not living in the past or other countries where this behavior is tolerated. Look recently at resignations for top executives when they have been responsible for unwanted sexual advances. Look at all the policies, and the laws in place now in government and private industry making this type of behavior subject to fines and possible jail time,

Maybe it is the effect of young people today being overexposed to incredible sexual behavior on the Internet or numbness to the reoccurring stories in the media of this politico or other businessman making poor moral decisions. Maybe it is the fear of losing one’s job that more young people don’t step forward to report continuing creepy behavior? Maybe it just isn’t something additional they want to think about.

I look at my daughters who are smart, motivated and hip. But I also look at them across from the breakfast table and see and hear the inner voices of girls as they struggle to come to terms with life’s fears and dreams. I can understand why this woman has waited for over 50 years to tell her story. I think she is still coming to terms with the enormity of the situation and is airing her decision as a relatively innocent 19 year old trying to  make her way in the world. I asked my daughters what they thought. “ It was so long ago” they both answered. Perhaps my strong reaction to this is because I was a kid and looked up to JFK. Who do young people look up to today? If president Obama was accused of this on CNN, would it matter? As parents we owe our children conversations on this type of behavior. If for nothing else to let them know that growing up is complex, being awestruck is normal but behavior like this is unacceptable. It is a shame that this story has not had more impact on the young people engaging on social media. Shame on us. Shame on JFK.

A lot of readers may not be familiar with 44066/Texas Tower 4. So, here is a brief description of what is was and the history. 44066 is the National Data Buoy Center's official designation of the 2010 deployed buoy several miles WSW of the Hudson Canyon tip.
For those of you that lived through the Russian Missile Crisis and heyday of the Cold War, the US
had started the first aspect of Homeland Security with the establishment of the DEW line. This was the Defense Early Warning system and part of it was the situating of a few ocean based Radome facilities on stilts in the offshore waters of the Mid Atlantic. They were called Texas Towers because of their resemblance to the oil towers offshore off of Texas. (No relations to the sniper of such terminology.)
I think there were 5 proposed towers to be built but only a couple were actually deployed and firmly planted in the Atlantic. The Tower #4 was situated about 12 miles North of the Tip of the Hudson Canyon is 180 feet of water.

As you can see it was pretty impressive and under the auspices of the Air Force even thought it was on the water. It was piled deep into the ocean bottom, and rose 360 feet from there to the platform bottom. It stood 180 feet above the water. Crew were photographed fishing from up high and actually reeling up their catch. Incredible sea life was observed as well. Life was good for those aboard this tower for most of the time.
Inside was all kinds of instrumentation designed to provide early warnings of low flying enemy, specifically, Russian aircraft that potentially carried bombs to threaten the coast of the US. This was also a good spot to keep an eye on Russian trawlers and submarines that might be close to shore ( about 75 miles from NY Harbor) and to eavesdrop on any threatening conversations.
There was a constant crew of about 50 that monitored the area 24/7. On a rotating basis men would be helicoptered or shipped back to Otis AFB and supplies brought in by ship on a schedule.
There was an inherent flaw however in the deployment of the tower. Sometime during either construction or shipping of the parts to the platform anchor bed one of the legs had been fractured.
Given the go ahead to continue to construct this tower the one leg was buttressed to remain solid against the ocean's conditions. This leg was repaired more that once but never had the stability of a firm leg and swayed often to the rough seas. Crew named her "Old Shaky" and used to laugh about it. Unfortunately this bad leg was a bad omen.
The military ran this program from 1955 to 1963 when the last tower was dismantled. I guess by that time the technology had progressed so that on the water stations were no longer necessary much like the extinction of Lightships.
In January of 1961 one horrible Noreaster hit our coastal waters. It was a miserable and dangerous storm. With weather forecasts not being what they are today, it snuck up and its intensity was not anticipated. Calls were made to the main base asking for aid to abandon the platform but due to the sensitivity of the equipment a contingent of 28 men was left to ride it out and protect US property.
However the storm intensified and began to rock the tower mercilessly. (One can read the transcripts of radio contact and the men calling for help in other online history. ) Attempts were made for an emergency rescue but were not successful because of the severity of the storm. A Navy ship went out to try a rescue but had to turn back because of the waves and the impossible situation of getting 28 men off a 180 foot high tower into 20-30 foot seas and near hurricane strength winds. One could hear the frantic calls for help on the radio. Then it suddenly went dead.
The tower had collapsed. 28 men went down. None were rescued. The storm was too severe, the water way too cold for rescue or survival.
It was a tragedy of the time. However for many years the government failed to recognize the plight nor take responsibility nor commemorate the sacrifice of these men. President Obama stepped up and did so last year in 2011.
Prior to that during talks about deploying this newly positioned buoy, the  National Data Buoy Center agreed to co-name the 44066 buoy Texas Tower 4 in memorial for these souls given to Davy Jones Locker. Finally a blessed homage to the men who were in actuality one of the first modern guardians of our Homeland in the 20th century.
More to come in a later post..

Buoy 44066/TT4 Drift Tracked and Observed by BCL

Feb

2

44066/Texas Tower Drift Observed by BCL

44066 Tracking Update:

Since the 44066/TT4 buoy broke loose a month ago, it has been on an ESE drift. Normally,in order to determine the next order of action NDBC seeks observing from ships of opportunity whenever possible to document the condition of loose buoys. In this case Bermuda Cargo Lines was contacted for their assistance. BCL was past involved in the Oleander Project a few years ago in research with University of Rhode Island, NMFS and ONR. So an email was sent requesting an observation if practical. Well, being involved with marine research, BCL came through with flying colors. They have a weekly round-trip cargo run from Port Newark to Hamilton, Bermuda. The VP of Vessel Operations was quick to volunteer the Oleander in the seek and observe mission during their current run. Supplying them with hourly coordinates of the drifting buoy the Oleander was able to find it last night ( Feb 1) and report the physical condition of the buoy. Here is their report:

Good Morning Jeff:

Despite the bad weather in the area last night (the vessel was struggling to make 5 knots headway at times in high seas) the Oleander was able to locate your buoy around 0520 UTC this morning. They made a visual on the light and radar contact with the buoy from about 5 miles out.  Master reports that “there appears to be no visual damage. Solar panels okay. Anemometers turning. Buoy is in stable condition” Unfortunately he says the photos they took are not great quality due to the limited lighting provided by the vessel’s search light. The Master will send me the photos later today once they are in port but his comments above are probably more significant.Attached are my own plots of the buoy over the past few days and the route (blue line) the Oleander has been following north since departing Bermuda on Tuesday.   Fortunately they only had to steam an extra 6 miles from their usual track (red line) to meet up with it so the additional fuel consumption is in the realm of $200.  As mentioned before the buoy seems to be entering the North Wall of the Gulf Stream with an increasing rate of drift to the East unless the winds should dictate otherwise.Good luck in recovering the buoy if that is feasible and please don’t hesitate to contact me in the future if there is anything Bermuda Container Line may be able to assist with.

Best regards 

Blair Simmons  |  VP - Vessel Operations, Container Ship Management Ltd.

I had asked the BCL rep if he thought the buoy was situated in a bad area due to traffic. His response was it thought it was fine. It is a clearly marked buoy, has a working light and it able to be detected by radar at a minimum of 5 miles by commercial ships. That was good to hear.

This buoy is now working its way pretty much Easterly along the 38^th latitude towards Europe. Having spoken to NDBC it is not determined yet as to what will be done; an attempted retrieval or new buoy. We will have to wait and see. Dollars determine the choice.

In the earlier post it was thought that perhaps sabotage was involved in this or other buoys loosing their footing. The NDBC spokesperson told me that a buoy up off Alaska was cut by a crabber because his lines had gotten snagged. NDBC has the authority to legally pursue this action under vandalism but they realize that things happen out there and they take a case by case approach to enforcement. In the case of the 44066 it would be good for whoever may have had knowledge of this incident, if actually so, and report to NDBC. It is always god to know why buoys loose their moorings.

So, the upshot is that once again there has been a spirit of cooperation among mariners and companies. It is strange that although there has been excellent inter-agency and extra commercial cooperation internationally, this buoy’s luck has not been great. Let’s hope that

the 3^rd deployment will be the charm and this buoy will continue to provide important ocean conditions to all recreational and commercial vessels transiting the NY Bight.

Thanks to BCl and its dedication to cooperation to marine research and safety. Thanks to NDBC for their ongoing attention to our needs. Thanks to Maracoos for their support  for ocean observing.

Please go to Facebook and “Like” my comment. BCL deserves credit for their time and effort in helping, us, the recreational angler, and all mariners,  in making our offshore trips safer.