The horizontal mooring : a two-dimensional array, description of the array, components, instrumentation, deployment and recovery operations

Abstract

A moored two-dimensional array with instrumentation distributed both horizontally and vertically was deployed for 27 days in August 1998 at an 85 meter deep site in Massachusetts Bay near Stellwagon basin. The horizontal mooring consisted of a 160- meter long horizontal element positioned at a depth of 20 meters between two subsurface moorings. Suspended below the horizontal member were five 25-meter long vertical strings. The vertical strings had a horizontal separation of 30 meters and each had instruments at depths of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45 meters. Instrumentation deployed on the two-dimensional array included acoustic current meters, temperature sensors, conductivity measuring instruments, pressure sensors and motion monitoring packages. This report includes a detailed description of the two-dimensional array, the anchoring system and the instrumentation that were deployed. Also included is a description of the deployment and recovery techniques that were employed as well as an assessment of the performance of the array.