In 1973, a crew of MSRC scientists took a cruise to the New York Bight onboard the Research Vessel Atlantic Twin.  As the story goes, the cruise was funded by former MSRC Director and current Director of NY Sea Grant Don Squires.   The scientists were tracking sewage sludge dumped into the Bight by the City of New York.  The work may have led to the later cessation of sludge dumping in the New York Bight.

Assistant Chief Scientist Glen Hulse was responsible for the installation and operation (on board the Atlantic Twin) of the “Plunket”, a semi-automated system of hydrographic sampling and data acquisition that permits high special resolution of water quality properties through continuous measurements. This allowed for both horizontal and vertical water quality property gradients to be measured in the order of meters or less. This system provided data for the development and publication of several scientific papers and Technical Reports by MSRC.

Prior to the cruise, Glen flew to California with all the physical oceanographic data measuring equipment and spent one week at Plessey Environmental Systems located in San Diego, for the purpose of having all equipment calibrated and tested ready for sea. He then spent three days onboard ship installing the Plunket water quality system, plumbing the wet labs for sampling requirements, testing and field-calibrating all scientific measuring, data gathering and logging equipment, eventually fine-tuning onboard electrical requirements for the scientific equipment and various pumping systems.

At sea, many variables within the water column were detected including a meandering Gulf Stream eddy in the NY Bight not far offshore. Plunket real-time data helped with the drogue parachute research performed by Malcolm Bowman.

The crew of the R/V Atlantic Twin included Glen Hulse, Jeff Parker, Iver Duedall, Doug Hardy, Joe Alesi, and Malcolm Bowman.

Iver Duedall and Glen Hulse speak about the trip on the Tales of the Research Vessel Atlantic Twin, prepared in July 2020

The photos are available on Google Photos.

 

MSRC R/V Atlantic Twin, #2 1973

MSRC, R/V Atlantic Twin, Iver Duedall(L) & Malcom Bowman prepare drogue, 1973