Herring Acoustic Survey: herring again

As we are progressing further south in our survey area, it becomes evident that we have left the biggest herring aggregations behind us. We are now at or beyond the southern border of the main distribution area and fish detections become more sparse and less dense. On Wednesday evening we encountered one of these aggregations consisting of, what seemed like, small herring schools along the seabed. We shot the net to take a sample.

haul 15: 09/07/2014 @ 16:14 UTC (56º19'N 0º04'W)

However, the result was again: Norway pout. They were again juveniles with mean lengths between 5-6 cm.

The weather also got increasingly worse and we were getting gale force 7 winds for a 24 hour period.

the wind was picking up

During the night, while standing still for the few hours of darkness when we are not surveying, the winds were unleashing their damaging forces. Unfortunately, our towed body, which is housing our echosounder transducers and is pulled along the side of the ship on a cable, did take quite a beating. In the morning it was evident that the towing cable got torn and the towed body was just hanging on the transducer cables and a Dyneema rope. Every wave was smashing it into the side of the ship. The result was some bent metal and even fractures in the structure. The morning was therefore spent exchanging damaged parts with those of the spare towed body that we are carrying on board, in order to make it survey-fit again.

bent wing of the towed body

despite the bad weather during repairs the spirits were still high!

new stabilising weights were attached to the towed body and welded to the old frame

after a few hours spent for repair work, the towed body was put in the water again and the survey continued

Soon afterwards we were passing the Devil's Holes to the south and came across some impressive marks. The net was again shot to get a sample of the fish.