CalCOFI 1511OC General Cruise & Cast Notes:

Stations and Station Order: this cruise occupied 68 stations: 60 standard, & 8 SCCOOS.  The station order was significantly influenced by bad weather which was prevalent throughout the cruise. Five stations, three on line 93.3 and two on line 90.0, were dropped completely: 93.3 100 110 120 & 90.0 120 110 - see map above. The stations were reordered to allow station work to continue, maximizing ship-time utilization.
Although 70 CTD casts were performed, two casts were replicates of casts done earlier in the cruise. During rough weather, nets were not deployed on stations 93.3 45 or 86.7 45.  These missing tows were recovered during the transit home. But since there was a gap of several days between the original CTD cast and the recovered net tows. New CTD casts/profiles were done on both stations but without seawater sample collection. The CTD profile-only casts were #68 (86.7 45) & #70 (93.3 45). Cast #69, station 93.3 50, was also missed the first time and occupied during the transit home. The was a complete station with CTD profile, bottle-samples, and all net tows but done second-to-last. It should also be noted that cast #70 had a deck unit failure at ~440m of the downcast which was not repaired. Cast 70, 93.3 45 replicate, only has CTD sensor data to 440m, downcast only.

The Pt Dume SCCOOS station at 85.4 35.8 was not occupied since we transited from 86.7 45.0 north during rough seas. Significant ship-time would have been required to pick it up later.

CTD General Notes and Problems: there was a gradual failure of the primary conductivity sensor cable starting at station #16, 90.80, after the 3500m deep cast (#15). This gradual failure was not easily detected because the conductivity value looked fine onscreen when displayed at 1sec. But an interruption of primary conductivity causes the pumps to shut off. During the 10m-2min precast soak, the pumps came on but when brought back to surface to start the cast, the pumps shut off. This problem was not identified until cast #18, when the pumps switching off was detected by DMW & JRW. JRW servicing the pump cables appeared to fix the problem but it reappeared on cast #19. It took several launch and recoveries before the bad conductivity cable was finally pinpointed as the reason for the pumps shutting down.
On cast 16, the pumps stayed on after ~34m on the downcast then shut off at ~5.7m on the upcast. On cast 17, the pumps did not come on till ~53m on the downcast but stayed on till landing on deck. Cast 18 was good and cast 19 was delayed by ~4.5hrs while troubleshooting was performed. There were some issues with the backup oxygen sensor installed during troubleshooting on the following casts, 19, 20, & 21. The problem was cured pre-cast 22 by re-installing the original primary oxygen sensor. Please use bottle data or secondary CTD oxygen sensor data on casts 19-21.
The CTD configuration throughout the cruise was standard: Seabird 911+ (new pressure case since 1501) with dual T, C, O2, & pumps;  Wetlabs C-Star 25cm transmissometer; Biospherical QSP200L PAR;  Datasonics/Benthos Altimeter; WET Labs ECO-AFL/FL; Seabird SBE 18 pH; Satlantic ISUS v2 & Wetlabs (custom) batteries. Please refer to the xmlcon files or cruise  prospectus for additional info & metadata. Other than the failure of the pump/conductivity cable on casts 16 & 17 and the primary oxygen sensor on casts 19-21, all the sensors worked well. Even with the new cable on the C-Star transmissometer, on the 3500m deep cast, the transmissometer data acquisition stopped at 2010m. The low voltage spikes reoccurred repeatedly at depths below 400m on all subsequent downcasts. The Satlantic ISUS nitrate sensor lamp and spectrophotometer were replaced prior to this cruise, just barely arriving in time to make the Newport-bound semi. Preliminary data look good when plotted versus bottle NO3 data. The ISUS was mounted vertically, with optics pointing down.

Logistics: CalCOFI 1511OC was CalCOFI's second cruise on OSU R/V Oceanus. Two-day loading and setup were performed at OSU's ship facilities in Newport, Oregon. CalCOFI techs transported gear in bins to 10th Ave Marine Terminal Oct 19th, loaded the gear onto a semi-truck Oct 21st, flew to Portland and drove to Newport Oct 22nd. The truck arrived, and was met and offloaded Oct 23rd at OSU Ship Operations pier. Since we sailed in July, loading and setup was fast although martech Daryl was sorely missed. RV Oceanus' two-conductor termination, deck unit, CTD computer, and depth-readout box were used with SIO-CalCOFI's 24-bottle CTD-Rosette. There were no issues with the conductive wire. The previous problem with the CTD continuity interruption during hydro winch (CTD winch 2) operations was not tested. One new (to CalCOFI) AB, Patrick, was on this cruise, was extremely helpful, and performed all ops well considering the weather. AB's Doug and Mark, both who sailed with use in July, were the other watch-standers. The new martech, Andrew, was helpful but trouble-shooting ship-related issues like the phone system and not out on deck much. Also his continual rebooting of the ship's DNS router caused reoccuring networking issues with the GPS-Event Log, sample log to dataserver, data acquisition workstations to data server. Revisions of SIO-CalCOFI software is deemed necessary to improve reliability. Also running our own independent data subnet will be reimplemented on RVs Lasker, Shimada, and Sally Ride.

Note: SIO-CalCOFI CTD-Rosette was running on R/V Oceanus CTD system - deck unit, dual-screen computer, remote-depth readout via serial com port, GPS via serial com port. Seasave data acquistion had to be restarted often to handshake properly with GPS NMEA or else it would timeout. This was the only issue, other than going offline when the 2nd winch was operating, noticed with the Oceanus deck unit hosting our 911+. Our seasave screen display configuration was used and coefficients were imported.

RV Oceanus prefers to keep the Knudsen 12kHz echosounder on at all times while at sea, continually mapping the bottom depth.

Cast Notes:

Please note - casts 16-21 have issues with oxygen data; the data quality code for these casts have been entered and derived values deleted.

Cast 01 - 02: no issues reported on Console Ops.

Cast 03 - trigger #1 lanyard released but did not throw all the way, no seawater from 58m; trigger serviced post-cast

Cast 04 - 93.3 28.0: deck unit powered on at surface (scrambling, close stations); soaked for 4mins before returning to surface and data acquisition started.

Cast 08 - 93.3 45.0 rough seas already; CTD okay but nets cancelled

Cast 09 - sta 93.3 55 - sta 93.3 50 was bypassed after sea conditions were assessed and determined too rough

Cast 11 - ISUS not charged between stations, sensor worked fine; moderate seas

Cast 12 - JRW/JLW split watch cast - extra marker at 87m, deleted before backed up

Stations 93.3 100, 110, 120 & 90.0 120, 110 dropped because bad weather was forecast

Cast 15 - sta 90.90 weather calm; 3500m deep cast: no PAR, pH or ISUS data - sensors removed due to pressure ratings. At 2010m downcast transmissometer went out - came back at ~600m on upcast. CESL tablet was switched and misconfigured, writing to 1507. Lots of market and Humboldt squid around the CTD boom during the cast.

*Cast 16 - large spikes noted and "9000" surface salinity noted by JLW on console ops. Dololids prevalent and suspected. *pump off problem rears its ugly head but is not recognized

*Cast 17 - DMW noted "clogged CTD suspected or connectors need regreasing". * pumps off problem not identified

*Cast 18 - DMW mentioned spikeyness at the 1600 watch change; CTD recovered and pump connectors serviced, CTD redeployed and worked fine the whole cast. Pump problem identified and "fixed"

*Cast 19 - JRW deployed and redeployed the CTD, experiencing the same pumps-on then pumps-off issues seen on cast 18. Pump cables regreased & serviced - redeployed; replaced pump cable - redeployed; (pumps tested in bucket - working fine on deck); primary pump replaced - redeployed; (vertical nets tows done while waiting); primary-only rigged - redeployed; Oceanus pump attached (single only) - redeployed; FINALLY notice a value of -99 in conductivity value not seen previously, replaced the primary conductivity sensor - redeployed - pump off(!); replaced primary conductivity cable - redeployed - WORKED! Tried to undo all that I had undone so only the conductivity cable was different. But kept the replacement primary conductivity sensor on. But primary O2 sensor SN 1590 reading really low - coefficients misconfigured - fixed post-cast; still bad - possible plumbing disconnect during troubleshooting, use secondary sensor data.

Cast 20 - continual issues with primary oxygen SN 1590, use secondary sensor data first although primary T & S look okay.

Cast 21 - continual issues with primary oxygen, use secondary sensor data first although primary T & S look okay.

Cast 22 - primary oxygen switched back to SN 0680; backup SN 1590 removed; primary oxygen profile looks good again. Winds gusting to 33kts and rainy at start of station (during prep), down to 19kts at end of cast - squall?

Cast 28 - bottle #6 mistripped, sent back down to 19m

Cast 30 - Santa Monica Basin, ~740m, CTD to 730m; transmissometer dropped out at 410m on downcast

Cast 31 - upcast only, downcast data not logged; extremely rough conditions (worse that 93.50) but CTD deployed, down slow, recovered; AB Mark on winch nervous so Martech Andrew helped recover manning center line. Heading shoreward to calmer seas post-cast.

Cast 32 - 83.3 39.4, ISUS not plugged in, connector seems okay - retrieved and cleaned by JLW, no ISUS data

Cast 33 - 34 - no ISUS data, faulty battery connector since SCCOOS cast 32

Cast 35 - new battery (C) installed by DMW, ISUS working.

Cast 36 - 81.8 46.9 Santa Barbara Basin station; moderate-rough seas, wind 23+kts gusts to 29Kts, 6-7ft waves

Cast 38 - ISUS battery not connected, connector eroded away; new battery installed post-cast by DMW. JRW repaired the bad connectors on both batteries - installed new integrated battery pack into case.

Cast 39 - CTD sent back down to get missed 230m bottle, yo-yo'd on upcast

Cast 43 - no nav file created so one was built post-cast from mrk bottle 1

Cast 44 - deck pr getting high so -0.100 added to offset; phone system offline, using radios, Andrew is fixing it & rebooting DNS

Cast 48 - cleaned trigger #6 pre-cast - sticky; up & downcast different - internal wave?; transmissometer worked till ~504m downcast

Cast 49 - transmissometer dropped between 470-515m; missed the 100m bottle so after 85m bottle, the CTD returned to 100m; bottle 11 = 85m bottle 12 = 100m

Cast 53 - network offline after station ie Andrew installing new power supply/UPS

Cast 54 - light rain

Cast 58 - pr spike seen by Mark at 25m on upcast - spiked to 125m, seems okay; squid; 60m mixed layer

Cast 61 - 4m swell; extra marker @#8/170m; edited before backed-up

Cast 65 - yo-yo'd twice (fatigue setting in?) missed 440m bottle so went down after 380m bottle closure then bypassed 320m to 270m but went back down without bottle trip so no change except bottles 2 & 3 are inverted.

Cast 66 - lanyard #11 stuck in lid of #12; all samples except O2s drawn from bottom valve

Cast 68 - sta 86.7 45 reoccupied for nets, CTD profile only to provide net tow-related profile; no bottles closed or samples collected

Cast 69 - sta 93.3 50 missed due to bad weather, picked up several days later; complete station

Cast 70 - sta 93.3 45 reoccupied for nets, CTD profile only. Power surge or ??? caused bottle #4 trip on-screen (no mouse clicked), upon recovery bottle #17 was closed (?). Also something caused the deck unit fuse to blow at 440m on downcast, cast was aborted but data from 0-440m was saved, plots printed and archived. Blown fuse was not discover until later, by Andrew. Will check out our 911+ & deck unit at SIO prior to 1601RL.

File notes:
Seasoft-generated asc-hdr files were not renamed to YY-YYLLLLSSSS_###d or u.asc & .hdr. Voltages were not relabled. This practice makes it difficult to reprocess & merge with bottle data if necessary.

Mislabels found and corrected:
No stations are believed to have been mislabeled in the header.

04Dec2015