Hybis is one of the other vehicles on Discovery. It’s a remotely operated vehicle with a scoop on the bottom, so it goes down on a cable (10km of cable) and can then be driven gently along the sea floor to find something interesting to sample. Because it’s on a cable, it can provide live video from two different cameras (one forward-looking and one downward-looking), and has lots of power for lights, etc. It belongs to Dr. Bramley Merton from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS), who is a big name in the field of black smokers. He also happens to be a very interesting guy to hang out with, and has a real interest in trying out new technologies, such as using autonomous vehicles to do this stuff. Bramley is the reason I got involved with the Autosub team in the first place.
Hybis is along for two reasons, firstly to test it in deep water in preparation for its use in the Carribean in March, where it will be used to visit the black smokers that Autosub will hopefully discover, and secondly because last year it rescued a lander that had been lost on the bottom, so if something goes wrong on Autosub and it doesn’t return to the surface, Hybis might be able to retrieve it.
Today hasn’t been Hybis’s day, however. It was supposed to have been launched several hours ago to go to about 5600m. However, the winch it was attached to stopped working with it about 100m below the surface. After a long delay, they managed to get Hybis back (the picture is of Hybis coming out after it’s dive), but since then they’ve been repairing and testing the winch. Hopefully by tomorrow morning Hybis will be on the bottom, but at present everything is in limbo.
The current plan is to launch Autosub for its deep test tomorrow morning as well. We spent today putting everything back together (they even got me ended up grovelling under the sub putting casings on and attaching instruments), and the team seem confident that it’ll work. The good news is that the threatened 5m waves haven’t arrived. It’s been rougher today, but not nearly as bad as we feared. We’re due west of Lisbon, the sea here is warm, and hopefully we’ll have a lovely sunny day tomorrow.
[in a Spock-like voice] Fascinating!
Ah ha, so if all the “positive buoyancy” or “abort weights” fail to bring autosub back when “things go wrong” there’s Hybis! 😉
There are big gales (up to 85mph gusts) and heavy rain forecast for the UK tomorrow. So no climbing for us. But … when that gets a bit further south, you may well see those 5m waves! 😈
How is the fitness campaign going?
I see that you’re entered in the elite class Richard! 😎 And, Jon and Rachel are (separately) in the B class. 😀
Not long to the OMM now!
Can we come and cheer you all on? Where (and when) would we need to be?
Er, mid-Wales somewhere, but I haven’t looked at the details yet. With the lack of large hills I guess we’ll be taken over some pretty grotty terrain to make up for it – joy 🙄
As for the weather yesterday, I was out guiding a group ’round the Yorkshire Three Peaks (sorry, no blog). The wind certainly made it ‘interesting’ – going up Pen-y-ghent felt like the Cairngorm plateau in winter 😯 I was with one of the quick groups and we got ’round in 9 hours – not bad for a bunch of non-walking corporate city types! Might skip Blencathra today though… 😉
I’m sure Hybis is just as interesting technically as Autosub, but it doesn’t look nearly as cool – do you guys get toy jealousy?! Dr. Bramley Merton (great name) needs to put a case ’round it – I was thinking an octopus theme might work 😀
Regarding the winch, I guess it’s a lot better to have it fail with 100m of cable out rather than the 5 or 6km! Especially if it’s a manual override 😯
The Elan Valley. Lots of horrible tussocks to wade through!
There’s not too much toy jealousy. The two have vastly different capabilities. Hybis can actually sit on the bottom and take video of something, and can collect samples. If Autosub stops moving it will start to ascend, but on the other hand it can travel over a wide area without the ship on the surface trying to manoever to follow it. Also, it doesn’t rely on the rather troublesome Deep Tow winch, which still isn’t behaving itself.
I’ll suggest the octopus theme, though! 😉
These guys have been busy again:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100412/tuk-british-team-finds-so-called-hell-on-dba1618.html
I talked to the guys on the Ship yesterday. They’re working shifts round the clock, so are very tired, but are pretty happy with their new discoveries. I’m also happy to say that they’re using our software! 😯