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Pursuit of the OceanoScientific® Campaign - MISSION ARCTIQUE 2012

La Louise left France (Etel and Lorient, Brittany) on 19 February, bound directly for Iceland. The expedition schooner is now taking the best of the spring season to set off to Greenland as part of the OceanoScientific® Campaign - MISSION ARCTIQUE 2012, supported by the Veolia Environment Foundation. La Louise left indeed Iceland on 21 April.

The arctic expedition schooner La Louise left Iceland for Greenland and is now getting around from the south to call at Nuuk, on the west side of Greenland, in the Davis Strait. During the summer when Baffin Bay will be no longer covered by ice, the schooner will make straight for the North, above the Arctic Polar Circle - SailWX map

The most recent OceanoScientific® System prototype (version 2.0) is now tested on board the schooner mastered by Thierry Dubois. It keeps tirelessly on collecting scientific data. Those are automatically satellite-transmitted to international platforms that treat the data before sending them to meteorological and oceanographic institutes.

Reaching Greenland’s coasts, the OceanoScientific® Campaign - MISSION ARCTIQUE 2012 is now taking on a new dimension. La Louise is indeed sailing in a zone that has hardly been scientifically explored. The more the temperature will get higher, the more the Northern Canada will open its seas to La Louise. In these conditions, the OceanoScientific® System will be able to collect more and more interesting data for the international scientific community, especially in terms of operational oceanography and meteorology.

The OceanoScientific® Programme at the global ocean forum Oceanology International 2012 - London

After being officially recognised by the global economic competitiveness cluster Pôle Mer Bretagne on the 24th of February 2012 in the framework of a consortium bringing together SailingOne (France), SubCtech (Germany), IFREMER and Météo-France (France), the OceanoScientific® Programme attended from the 13th to 15th of March the biannual global ocean forum Oceanology International 2012 (oi12) in London.

At the occasion of this event with global relevance 7.000 professionals from more than 70 countries shared knowledge and connected with the marine technology and ocean science community, improving their strategies for measuring, exploiting, protecting and operating in the world’s oceans.

The Ocean Observation and Forecasting session of the conference covered all aspects of ocean observation and monitoring using remote sensing and in-situ technologies as well as tools and techniques for ocean forecasting.

The OceanoScientific® Programme was presented several times by Martin Kramp, the responsible engineer at SailingOne, on the French stand of Pôle Mer Bretagne and on the stand of its industrial partner SubCtech.

It was also the perfect opportunity to continue discussing with major international companies involved in scientific cooperation programs. The debate had started at the Kick-Off meeting of the Smart Ocean - Smart Industries initiative launched by the World Ocean Council (WOC) in Paris at the headquarters of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO in December 2011.

Robert O’Brien (Marine Environmental Advisor at BP, on the left), Paul Holthus (Director of the WOC) and Martin Kramp (SailingOne) used the opportunity to discuss at the Ocean Observation and Forecasting session of the conference about a future cooperation in the framework of the OceanoScientific® Programme - Photo SailingOne

Martin Kramp (SailingOne, on the left) was joined by other speakers of the oi12 conference, as Dr. Colin Grant (BP), Dr. Eric Lindstrom (NASA), Dr. Samuel Walker (BP) and Clayton Jones (Teledyne), to discuss about the OceanoScientific® Programme at the booth of SubCtech, in the presence of several other concerned scientists - Photo SailingOne

The OceanoScientific® System on board of expedition sailing vessel “La Louise”

Early February, the latest prototype of the OceanoScientific® System (Version 2.0) has been installed on the expedition schooner La Louise, a 20 metres (63 feet) long sailing vessel imagined, built and mastered by Thierry Dubois, one of the best French Ocean Racers of the 1990s and famous for his participations in the single-handed nonstop race around the world, the Vendee Globe. “I would like this vessel to be a useful tool for scientific projects” declared the famous skipper at its launch in 2010 at La Trinité-sur-Mer in Brittany (France). This wish is now becoming reality in cooperation with the consortium SailingOne - SubCtech (Ger.) - IFREMER - Météo-France.

The schooner La Louise (20 metres / 63 feet) mastered by Thierry Dubois left the river of Etel (Brittany in France) with three further crewmembers on board on Saturday 18 February in the middle of the afternoon bound for Lorient for refueling. The real departure from Lorient, bound directly for Iceland, took place late on Sunday 19 February - Photo SailingOne

After the test campaigns on sailing vessels for ocean racing and cruising during the last three years (2009-2011), the OceanoScientific® Programme has reached a new dimension at the end of last year, when the OceanoScientific® System became a real “Plug & Play” solution for all kind of vessels of at least 15 metres length.

At that time the consortium SailingOne - SubCtech (Ger.) - IFREMER - Météo-France created the version 2.0 of the OceanoScientific® System, which has now been deployed on La Louise. This upcoming test campaign consists of two steps.

Between Etel (Brittany) in France where La Louise passed the winter and Isafjordur in Iceland, where Thierry Dubois will have his headquarters for the 2012 expeditions, the aim of the tests is to validate that the OceanoScientific® System 2.0 is fully operational from a mechanical and data processing point of view. Automatically gathered every six seconds on board of La Louise, first emerging data of the twelve focused parameters might be compared at the same time to other scientific reference platforms which Thierry Dubois and his crew pass by between France and Iceland.

In a second step, from spring to summer, the OceanoScientific® Campaign - MISSION ARCTIQUE 2012 (supported by the Veolia Environnement Foundation) will be a long term test between Iceland and Greenland, an area of extremely harsh climate between 66° and 75° North, as far as a sailing vessel can penetrate in this zone. During this second step, the scientists will be watching attentively the data of the twelve parameters collected by the OceanoScientific® System on board of La Louise, with a majority being automatically satellite-transmitted to international data centres. It is indeed a zone where the ocean-atmosphere interface has scientifically hardly been explored and scientists from multiple disciplines and from all over the world will be able to benefit from this discovery, gaining further knowledge about possible reasons and impacts of climate change.

Treating and transmitting both oceanographic and meteorological data from the ocean-atmosphere interface by a single, simple and compact instrumentation package, the OceanoScientific® System, was and remains innovative. Thanks to the integration of a new electronic element in the 2.0 version, it is now possible to incorporate data from already existing navigation systems (all brands), especially those of already installed wind sensors - without disturbing the other systems, such as the auto-pilot. This is one of the features of this “Plug & Play” system and an important advantage, as the installation and maintenance of additional wind sensors in the masthead of ocean racers had caused serious problems before - problem solved.

Mixed teams of the consortium SailingOne - SubCtech (Ger.) - IFREMER - Météo-France realized the installation and afterwards mechanical and data processing tests on board of La Louise.The satellite-transmitted data were successfully received, processed and validated by the data centres of IFREMER and Météo-France. La Louise will leave Etel northbound Mid-february, with an OceanoScientific® System 2.0 in perfect condition and fully operational.

Remember, in the end, that all collected scientific data are distributed to the international scientific community free of any charge, following the philosophy of the OceanoScientific® Programme since its launch in November 2006.

From left to right: Stefan Marx (SubCtech - Ger.), Clément Testa and Guilhem Pellecuer (Météo-France) prepare the atmospheric sensors of the OceanoScientific® System 2.0 at the chart table of La Louise - Photo SailingOne

Christophe Chaumont (SailingOne) installs the OceanoScientific® System on board of La Louise at its dedicated position in the hull, right under the chart table - Photo SailingOne

Stefan Marx (SubCtech - Ger.) processes preliminary tests with the OceanoScientific® System before its commission on board of La Louise - Photo SailingOne

“Smart Oceans - Smart Industries”: Workshop

The OceanoScientific® Programme attended the Kick-Off Meeting of this new program on ocean and climate observation, which was hosted by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) on 12-13 December 2011 in Paris.

More than 70 international scientists, engineers and key players of the shipping industry were united by the World Ocean Council (WOC) to develop strategies for a more efficient acquisition of scientific data from the ocean-atmosphere-interface by container and fishing vessels, cruise ships, tankers and ocean-going sailing yachts.

Click here to download the official news release

The OceanoScientific® Programme was represented by Pierre Blouch (Météo-France, on the left),

Martin Kramp (SailingOne), Gilles Reverdin (LOCEAN / INSU-CNRS)

and Jean-François Leprince-Ringuet (ROSS).

Interview of Fabienne Gaillard (IFREMER)

Dr. Fabienne Gaillard, who is Director of IFREMERS’s  Ocean Physics Laboratory (LPO) à l’IFREMER and scientific coordinator of the OceanoScientific® Programme, has been interviewed by the French daily newspaper Ouest-France and presented the 2012-13 OceanoScientific® Campaign, which will send several NAVOSE® - SolOceans One-designs on a circumnavigation during the 2012-2013 winter period. Read the article…

Sixth Session under the High Patronage of the French Ministry of Ecology

The sixth session of the OceanoScientific® Programme took place in Paris, under the High Patronage of  Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet at the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing.

Sixth session of the OceanoScientific® Programme

French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing (MESDTH) - Paris - October 11, 2011

From left to right: Rupert Schmid (Association ROSS), Philippe Court (Yacht Club de France),

Gérard Fries (Veolia Environnement), Christian Dumard (Team SODEBO), Liliane Merlivat (LOCEAN),

Fabienne Gaillard (IFREMER), Stefan Marx (SubCtech), Yvan Griboval (SailingOne),

Martin Kramp (SailingOne), Jean-François Leprince-Ringuet (Association ROSS),

Pierre Blouch (Météo-France), Gilles Reverdin (LOCEAN), Eric Banel (MESDTH).

Not pictured: Thierry Vandevelde (Fondation Veolia Environnement).

Professor Emmanuel Boss in Paris

Professor Emmanuel Boss (University of Maine), American partner of the OceanoScientific® Programme, is for the moment in Europe to assist scientific meetings at CNES and LOV, which are both also supporters of the OceanoScientific® Programme.

A stop-over in Paris of Emmanuel Boss (on the right) was a perfect opportunity to meet Martin Kramp (SailingOne), programme manager of the OceanoScientific® Programme and to plan some upcoming operations: In fact it will be a scientist from the University of Maine, specialized in bio-optical sensors, who will be sailing on NAVOSE® Boogaloo in 2012 to validate the latest configuration of the OceanoScientific® System by checking the installation and if the plankton-focused sensors for chlorophyll A and turbidity are working properly.

The OceanoScientific® Programme at the FerryBox Workshop 2011 - Hamburg

The OceanoScientific® Programme was invited to participate in the 4th FerryBox Workshop, hosted by the Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Coastal Research in Geesthacht close to Hamburg (formerly GKSS) on the 1st and 2nd of September.

After completion of the EU-funded project FerryBox in 2005 the FerryBox community wanted to improve the combined knowledge. Therefore the FerryBox Workshops were originated in order to share experience and knowledge about the use of different underway systems. The last three meetings took place in Oslo (2007), Southampton (2008) and Goteborg (2010). The 2011 workshop was organized in Germany.

This workshop was intended to promote science and knowledge of using ships of opportunity delivering observations of the oceans. It provided a venue to discuss recent advances, innovative ideas and scientific applications, to share experiences and to develop networks using underway systems.

The OceanoScientific® Programme was presented by Martin Kramp (SailingOne) in a session chaired by David Hydes that treated  innovative underway technologies for modern platforms, such as the OceanoScientific® System.

Eighty scientists and engineers from Europe and the American continents attended the meeting, naturally including some partners of the OceanoScientific® Programme from IFREMER, INSU-CNRS, IFM-GEOMAR and SubCtech. Many contacts have been established and further international partnerships focusing on the OceanoScientific® Programme will be generated in the weeks and months to come.

Click here to find the complete programme of the FerryBox Workshop and the abstracts of the presentations.

Scientific Mission around the World in 2012-2013

In its edition of July 18th, the French daily newspaper Le Figaro presents the 2012-2013 OceanoScientific® Campaign - Meteo and Salinity Mission. Read the article (French only)…

Being part of the “Explorers Club”, this scientific mission has been labelled by French Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, Nathalie Kosciusco-Morizet and takes place under her patronage, as well as under the patronage of the French Research Ministry.

The expedition will be undertaken at the same time as the Vendée Globe race around the world by three double-handed crews (two sailors per vessel) on the Sailing Vessels for the Scientific Observation of the Environment (Navire A Voile d’Observation Scientifique de l’Environnement - NAVOSE®) - SolOceans One Designs.

This one-design fleet with scientific duty will leave the Atlantic Coast of France on Wednesday, the 7th of November 2012 (Three days before the competitors of the Vendée Globe) for a non-stop around the world tour. Important partners of the OceanoScientific® Programme are the French institutes IFREMER, Météo-France, INSU/CNRS and German IFM-GEOMAR. Fifteen further international institutes collaborate to realize this big adventure, which will be a world premiere:  Never before the scientific community received important ocean and atmosphere data from platforms which are ocean racers and research vessels at the same time, even if they will not compete against each other before the next edition of the VELUX 5 OCEANS in 2014-2015 (Former BOC-Challenge), as they will not be inscribed as competitors of the 2012-2013 Vendée Globe.

The Aldebaran (Ger.) OceanoScientific® Campaign

Imagined by Yvan Griboval (SailingOne - France) in 2005 and launched in 2006 with its first scientific partners from IFREMER and INSU/CNRS, and later also Météo-France and IFM-GEOMAR (Ger.); implemented in 2007 and 2008 with the sponsorship of Veolia Environment, the OceanoScientific® Programme continues to develop its worldwide unique equipment especially designed for the automatic acquisition of scientific data at the ocean-atmosphere interface on board ocean racers and sailing yachts. The scientists declared Version 1.0 of the OceanoScientific® System operational on the 14th of October 2009. Version 2.0 is currently being tested on a German Research Sailing Vessel, Aldebaran, between Hamburg and the Wadden Sea (UNESCO world heritage site).  For the occasion, Aldebaran is being skippered by Martin Kramp (SailingOne), manager of the OceanoScientific® Programme and of the 2011-2012 OceanoScientific® Campaign - PLANKTON MISSION, who came on board immediately after participating in the Dräger Ocean Conference for the start of the one-week-expedition on  3rd of July, at this outstanding site in the North Sea where navigation is usually restricted.

On board Aldebaran, from left to right: Martin Kramp (SailingOne) and Stefan Marx (SubCtech) ; Lea Brenke and Caroline Frädrich (Gesamtschule Harburg - Ecology High School) taking plankton samples with a net, right under the atmospheric sensors and the satellite antenna of the OceanoScientific® System ; David Müller (Hamburg University - Cellbiology and Phycology Laboratoty) and Jennifer Schröder (Gesamtschule Harburg - Ecology High School) measuring fluorescence at the same time with a manual probe, whilst the OceanoScientific® System deployed on board samples fully automatically. Spectators of the sampling were numerous seals on the sandbank in the background. Photo SailingOne

Every year, the Aldebaran Mission raises public awareness for environmental topics through navigational trips for scientific research. Its area of expertise is bringing together scientists, engineers, journalists and young people. On board the 43 feet long Aldebaran this time, are the biologists Yannick Tiessen and David Möller, the engineers Stefan Marx (SubCtech) and Martin Kramp (SailingOne), and three girls from a High School in Hamburg (Ger.)

On the agenda of this Aldebaran Mission is a research project that deals with plankton, which is also one of the parameters of the OceanoScientific® Programme. The aim is to estimate the effects of agriculture and shipping on the coastal environment. Aldebaran also sails in the vicinity of several scientific data acquisition platforms enabling the comparison of validated data sources with data that are automatically collected by the OceanoScientific® System on Aldebaran. Afterwards, sailing will take place in the Wadden Sea, to collect plankton data in this outstanding world heritage site, protected by UNESCO.

The Wadden Sea comprises the Dutch Wadden Sea Conservation Area and the German Wadden Sea National Parks of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. It is a large temperate, relatively flat coastal wetland environment, formed by the intricate interactions between physical and biological factors that have given rise to a multitude of transitional habitats with tidal channels, sandy shoals, sea-grass meadows, mussel beds, sandbars, mudflats, salt marshes, estuaries, beaches and dunes. The inscribed site represents over 66% of the whole Wadden Sea and is home to numerous plant and animal species, including marine mammals such as the harbour seal, grey seal and harbour porpoise. It is also a breeding and wintering area for up to twelve millions birds per annum and it supports more than 10% of 29 species. The site is one of the last remaining natural, large-scale, intertidal ecosystems where natural processes continue to function largely undisturbed.

The scientific approach will be to compare several types of data: those collected using traditional methods by the researchers on board and those collected automatically by the OceanoScientific® System. A comparison with calculations on plankton (colorimetry) carried out by satellites will be carried out at a later stage.

This expedition will validate the technology and equipment and, above all, enable progress to be made with the development and validation of the OceanoScientific® System. Several German scientific institutes support the 2011 Aldebaran Mission, but IFREMER and Météo-France are also highly committed to this operation, since they receive the data of several OceanoScientific® parameters in their data centres for immediate processing, thanks to the OceanoScientific® System’s automatic satellite transmission.

“In the beginning, the OceanoScientific® System was designed exclusively for use on the Sailing Vessel for the Scientific Observation of the Environment (Navire A Voile d’Observation Scientifique de l’Environnement - NAVOSE®) - SolOceans One Design, in the context of round the world yacht races”, explains Martin Kramp. “But we now have equipment that can be easily removed from one sailing vessel and deployed on another. The installation of the OceanoScientific® System on Aldebaran was carried out easily and it took very little time. This technical result is a great success for us. It was achieved thanks to our work with Stefan Marx (SubCtech) and we are proud to be pioneers and to accomplish such a technical performance. In addition, with our hydro-generators, we have an emission free power supply”.

After this session on the Aldebaran sailing vessel, the OceanoScientific® System will return to the laboratory to wait for the validation of the collected data and for the resulting recommendations of the scientists involved. Afterwards, it will again be deployed on a NAVOSE® - SolOceans One Design for the following stage of the 2011-2012 OceanoScientific® Campaign - PLANKTON MISSION, which takes places next winter in the North and South Atlantic, in a special operation that follows the African coastline to the Cape Verde Islands. Both these areas are rich in plankton. The return is scheduled for the end of spring, probably in Monaco.

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