Brooke Ocean Technology Limited is pleased to announce the sale of a MOVING VESSEL PROFILER 200 (MVP200™) to Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine USA. The system will be installed aboard ships of opportunity within the Gulf of Maine. The system will also be used aboard standard research vessels by Bigelow.

The MVP200™ system is capable of reaching 200 m at 12 knots and 70 m at 18 knots and will be used to collect CTD and fluorometer profiles while underway at speeds up to 18 knots. This ability to collect underway data will make the survey operation more efficient, allow collection of subsurface information from a moving platform and improve data quality.

Dr. William Balch, research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory, has been working aboard ships of opportunity to study the oceanography of the Gulf of Maine over the last several years. Their work has been part of a NASA-funded program to provide ship-board validation of ocean chlorophyll and water-leaving radiance for the NASA ocean color satellites, SeaWiFS and MODIS. The new MVP200™ system will allow Balch and co-workers to routinely monitor vertical profiles of chlorophyll over the seasons, highly relevant to the satellite-derived signals that they validate. They will also collect vertical profiles of pressure, temperature and salinity to derive sections of sea water density. This, in turn, will be used to better understand vertical mixing processes that affect phytoplankton growth in the Gulf of Maine.

The MVP™ is an underway CTD or sound velocity profiling system which permits near vertical data profiles to be collected with the use of a recoverable free fall fish. The system includes a computer-controlled smart winch and deployment system that permits the free fall fish to be deployed while the vessel is underway. MVP™ is completely automated, can be operated by computer without the requirement for personnel on deck and can provide real time sound velocity input into a multi-beam sounder.

The free fall fish can also be equipped with a variety of sensors, including a sound velocity probe, fluorometer and plankton counter. For multibeam surveys, MVP™ saves a minimum of 3 hours per day of ship time by eliminating the requirement to stop and complete a static cast. Significant savings in multibeam data processing can be realized through improved data quality.

BOT is a Canadian-based manufacturer of sensor platforms, cable handling systems and launch/recovery systems. Other MVP™ systems are in use in Canada, USA, Japan, China and Norway.