Mooring Operations Of The Woods Hole Buoy Group For The Mid Ocean Dynamics Experiment

This report summarizes the geological and geophysical activities which were undertaken during Leg 7 of R/V CHAIN Cruise 115. A series of charts and profiles display the navigation, bathymetry, total field magnetic anomaly, free air and simple Bouguer anomalies, as well as all station locations.

Oceanographic measurements obtained from moored buoy systems are corrupted by the effects of mooring motion. To compute these effects and to design better moored systems, accurate mathematical descriptions of mooring dynamics and instrument dynamic response are needed. The report addresses the problem of mooring dynamics. The design and verification of a model for the low frequency dynamics of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Intermediate Mooring is described. A computationally efficient model was verified in the time domain using generalized least-squares techniques. Construction of this model involved iteration upon important system parameters and descriptions of physical processes in the light of the experimental data obtained from a full scale ocean test conducted jointly with WHOI. Model errors were defined, and procedures for obtaining greater accuracy through improved experiments are outlined. Preliminary results are presented on the development of potentially more effective maximum likelihood techniques for model parameter estimation. (Modified author abstract).

This report covers the techniques of deploying and recovering the moorings used by the Buoy Project at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. A brief description of the moorings and associated hardware is included. Deck equipment is discussed. Step by step descriptions are given of the procedures for handling of the mooring gear at sea during setting and recovery. Documentation and quality control are also discussed. (Author).

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Buoy Group's field work for the international POLYMODE program consisted of deployment and recovery of seventy of the seventy-eight program moorings on eight research cruises. The mooring program consisted of four distinct experiments conducted from June of 1974 to November of 1979. A brief of the arrays is provided, the mooring design process for a typical POLYMODE mooring is explained, and brief summaries are given of the WHOI deployment and recovery cruises. Appendix I is a schematic presentation of the chronological mooring history; Appendix II lists details of the seventy WHOI moorings deployed in the POLYMODE program and Appendix III lists details of other WHOI moorings that may be of interest to investigators. (Author).