Oslo Express draws more than 33 feet, making her by no means the deepest vessel in port. Channel depth excludes the largest vessels from entering our fair port already. So what has that to do with the orange boat in the foreground?
The small orange vessel, aka Michele Jeanne, does hydrographic surveys, seeing the invisible, mapping the infinitely complex bottom of the harbor, ensuring avoidance
of incidents like that of New Delhi Express, April 2006, when the bottom came too close;
and so much more. Hydrographic data collection begins when the globe-tipped rod on the bow swivels 180 degrees and all systems get powered up. Quite a leap forward from the tallow-tipped lead line. See a century-old chart of the harbor here. Find out about June 21 here. Maybe more later.
Photos, WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
4 comments
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December 17, 2007 at 10:34 am
Toby
Cool!
We had the bottom searched in the Morris Canal last week, too! However, that was by NJ State Police looking for a weapon used in a crime. Wonder what else they found?
December 17, 2007 at 11:15 am
tugster
so toby, what equipment did they use?
January 31, 2009 at 7:09 pm
bowsprite
ah, the humble leadline! it’s still in use on this vessel–in fact, for every job! it’s main purpose is in calibrating the instruments, adjusting for temperature of water, speed of sound. However, I have seen it used to gauge the bottom, for some surfaces have to be read by a trained hand: textures vary from fluff, “mayo”, grit…et cetera.
May 17, 2010 at 6:39 am
Small Craft « tugster: a waterblog
[…] surveying aka reading the invisible contours of the old river’ thoughts, (In foreground is SSG-577 aka Growler, hardly deterring the approach of an unidentified but intrepid orange survey boat that has appeared on this blog previously.) […]