JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH | VOLUME 3 | NUMBER 4 | PAGES 551-560 | 1981
© Oxford University Press
research-article |
The Undulating Oceanographic Recorder Mark 2
Natural Environment Research Council, Institute for Marine Environmental Research Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, England
Received on January 1, 1981; accepted on March 1, 1981 The Undulating Oceanographic Recorder (UOR) Mark 2 is a self-contained oceanographic sampler which can be towed from research vessels and merchant ships at speeds up to 13.5 m. s1 (26 knots). It can be launched and recovered by non-scientist crew-members while the vessel is undeT way. It is used to carry instrumentation to sample plankton continuously and to measure chlorophyll (range 0 to 100mg.m3), radiant energy (range 0 to 1000µE.m2.s1) temperature (range 0 to 30°C) and salinity (range 32 to 37°/00), all of which are recorded, with the measurement of depth (range 0 to 100 m), by a miniature digital tape recorder, with a resolution of 0.1 %of full scale. The UOR Mark 2 has a towing speed range of 4 to 13.5 m.s1 and it undulates from the surface to depths of 55 m (at 4 m.s1) and 36 m (at 10 m.s1) with 150 m of unfaired 8 mm od steel cable in water; the undulation length is pre-set between 800 and 4000 m. Used from a research ship, with 330 m of faired cable it reaches a depth of 240 m at a speed of 4 m.s1. When towed with a conductor-cored steel cable, the vehicle can be controlled from the towing vessel and the data from the sensor measurements displayed on-board in real-time.