New Mooring Design for a Telemetering Offshore Oceanographic Buoy

A new buoy system has been developed for the U. S. Bureau of Land Management to gather, process, and telemeter oceanographic data from the Georges Bank area of the New England outer continental shelf. The buoy system incorporates a taut-moored subsurface sphere 6 m below mean water connected to an anchor by an instrument string using an oil-filled synthetic rubber hose as the strength member. Three main sensor packages on the string measure current speed components, magnetic reference heading, conductivity, and temperature. The bottom sensor package is connected to the anchor by an acoustic release. The anchor consists of a 4500 kg free-flooding storage battery which supplies power to the system for up to four months. The air-sea interface is pierced with a 12.2 m fiberglass mast attached to the subsurface sphere. Mounted on top of the mast is the antenna for transmitting data via the GOES satellite telemetry system. Operational systems were deployed in the fall of 1977.