NOAA Fisheries presents
Saildrones: Cutting Edge Technology for Ocean Research
A saildrone is an unoccupied autonomous sailing craft,
controlled remotely by Saildrone, Inc. using an app on the iPhone
and houses a suite of sensors and instruments for collecting data from the environment.
The saildrone is around 20 feet long, 18 feet off the water,
weighs about 600 pounds
and can operate
kind of indefinitely.
The wind is the propulsion that pushes it along.
A solar charges the batteries which runs the computers and the communications.
NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory began using saildrones
in 2015 to study physical oceanography.
Two saildrones sailed the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, for 97 days,
traveling 4,500 miles
taking measurements of wind, sea temperature and salinity
-all important factors affecting food availability for fish and marine mammals.
These measurements are typically taken by scientists aboard large research vessels.
Ships can cost tens of thousands of dollars a day to operate and can
go into depths of about 20 meters.
On the other hand, saildrones can travel into shoreline areas to depths of 3 meters
and continue sampling in shallow water.
While ship work is weather dependent,
saildrones can stay out for six to twelve months at a time and continue sampling in
extreme conditions.
In addition to sampling ocean processes,
scientists are using saildrones to gather data on valuable fish species,
such as pollock.
In the saildrone's 250 lb. payload is an echosounder-an instrument
which bounces sound waves off the backs of fish
allowing the saildrone to record the abundance of fish in a given area.
NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center first used saildrone technology
in 2016 to collect data on pollock.
The Saildrone work is going to be done during the time that we're
doing an acoustic trawl survey of Walleye pollock and
we conduct semi-annual surveys to measure the number of fish
present in the area and that's used directly to set fishing quotas.
The pollock fishery is a large industrial fishery in Alaska.
There's a lot of effort in management of the fishery
and so I think that this has an important impact on that.
The pollock fishery contributes one-third of the total
U.S. commercial catch-it is also the primary food source of a local,
declining population of Northern fur seals.
Saildrones were also used in 2016 to track seal foraging habits -
they can be programmed to follow
an individual animal.
Knowing fur seal locations and dive information helps scientists
understand food availability for this population.
Specifically, we want to know how fur seals adapt
their behavior in response to fish availability and fish location
and how these changes relate to overall foraging success which is ultimately
related to their reproductive success and their survival.
In addition to the pollock and fur seal work, scientists also tested the use of saildrones
with other acoustic technology to learn about endangered species
like the North Pacific right whale.
To do this, a saildrone was equipped with an acousonde- an underwater recorder
which listens to detect the presence of whales.
[North Pacific rightwhale call]
The most important question we're hoping to have answered is
where are the right whales going or where are they coming into the Bering Sea from.
By exploring those areas we haven't been able to survey in over a decade
-if we are able to detect North Pacific right whales,
that would extend our knowledge on their distribution and fill in
some of those information gaps that are needed for conservation efforts.
Saildrone technology opens up a whole new world of monitoring, recording,
and collecting research information.
The data gathered may be used for making informed management decisions
about valuable commercial fisheries that affect our economy
and food supply,
in addition to gaining knowledge about species
such as protected seals
and whales.
Follow the Saildrone https:www.pmel.noaa.gov/itae/follow-saildrone-2017
Saildrone/NOAA Partners
NOAA Fisheries www.fisheries.noaa.gov
Credits and Copyright Information