A system to collect temperature and salinity profiles from vessels underway

Describes a self-contained CTD system to collect temperature and salinity profiles from vessels underway at speeds up to 20 knots. An internally recording CTD housed in a streamlined body is freely dropped on a tether line deployed at high speed. A prototype with 850 m of line has reached 370 m from a vessel travelling at 10 knots. A mathematical model predicts that with a suitable line, the following depths can be reached depending on the speed: 900 m at 14 knots, 600 m at 18 knots and 370 m at 22 knots. This system is suitable for operation with a minimum of human intervention even from vessels with very high freeboard. The ultimate goal is to develop a system in which the entire launch-deployment-recovery cycle will be initiated by a single signal from the bridge of the vessel