20 June 2004

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

June 20, 2004 Sunday
4:00 PM Alaska time

Data is a scientist's lifeblood and computer experts, Dale Chayes, Steve Roberts, and MST1 El McFadden, keep it flowing on the Healy. Whenever and wherever there is a computer glitch or other technical difficulty, they troubleshoot, debug and reprogram. It is thanks to these gentlemen that this journal, in its entirety, has continued to be sent off-ship throughout the cruise.

Dale is from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which has two grants specific to the Healy. One grant is from the National Science Foundation to install a navigation and heading system. The traditional gyrocompass used by many ships does not work well at high latitudes and is unreliable above 80 degrees latitude. He will be installing the new system between the SBI spring and summer cruise. The other grant is to provide technical support, analysis and planning to the Coast Guard for computers and technical systems such as the SeaBeam sonar system.

Dale Chayes provides technical support to the Coast Guard and scientists.

Steve works for the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS), a division of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Colorado. This is his second SBI cruise. Steve creates and maintains the SBI field catalog and map server. The catalog is where the scientists look for shipboard reports such as the chief scientist's reports and teacher journal; underway sensor data such as satellite images, air temperature, and current depth; ice observations reports; and station research products such as the station summaries. The map server updates the Healy's position every ten minutes. It also has options to view future and past SBI stations and ship tracks. Additionally, the chief scientist uses the it to plan future stations. The field catalog is heavily used onboard the ship via Healy's intranet site and is also available on land for public viewing at: http://www.joss.ucar.edu/sbi/catalog_hly-04-02/index.html.

Steve Roberts can be found at his computer at almost anytime day or night inputting data to the SBI field catalog.

MST1 Eldridge (El) McFadden has been with the Coast Guard for eleven and a half years. He has been associated with the Healy since 1998. Normally, El works for shore side support in Seattle, but he is on temporary duty to support the science network for the SBI spring cruise. El has work incredibly long hours to ensure the science network is running and reports can be transmitted to and from land. There is no relief personnel onboard for El which means he has been on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the entire cruise. He seems to thrive under the pressure, because, according to El, the best part of his job is the challenge.

MST1 El McFadden keeps us in contact with the rest of the world.