Page 5: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2006)

www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 5

Dear Editor:

I was distressed by your recent article on our HROV project in the October edition of the MTR (“ROV Man,” October 2006, page 30). There were many factual errors and omissions. While I cannot attempt to correct all of these here, I would like to address several I feel are particularly impor- tant.

To begin with, I have two co-Principal

Investigators on this project who must be acknowledged: Dr. Dana Yoerger and

Professor Louis Whitcomb. Dr. Yoerger is the longest standing member of WHOI's

Deep Submergence Laboratory (DSL) and responsible for many of the early achieve- ments relating to ROV control system development and deepwater acoustic navi- gation. His most notable achievement however must be development and utiliza- tion of the highly successful AUV ABE (Autonomous Benthic Explorer). On the

HROV project, Dana brings not only his extensive understanding of navigation and control but also a high level of experience with AUVs operating in challenging deep ocean environments.

Professor Whitcomb, of Johns Hopkins

University, with adjunct status at WHOI likewise has a long history with DSL, being the progenitor of both the Jason 1 and 2 vehicle control systems and the highly suc- cessful acoustic Doppler navigation pack- age used by both Jason 2 and the sub- mersible Alvin. On HROV, we would be seriously at disadvantage without Prof.

Whitcomb's contributions to the under- standing of the fiber tether through exten- sive modeling. Likewise, HROV would not benefit from his vast experience in con- trol system development and implementa- tion. It is also critically important to acknowledge the contributions that the

Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Center in

San Diego have made to the Project.

Without the knowledge and assistance of

Barbara Fletcher, Chris Young, James

Buescher and Richard Johnson, the

HROV concept would not be possible.

Their lab has done ground-breaking research and development on both the fiber tether and ceramic materials that are being applied to this project. In addition to participation by these member of an active

Navy Lab, we are and have been graced by having Jerry Stachiw on the team. Jerry's extensive knowledge of ceramics has been key to the use of this material on the

HROV Nereus.

There are additional corrections I feel are important to point out at this time. First, was the apparent omission of a portion of the text that states who is funding this work.* Without the support of the

National Science Foundation, Office of

Naval Research and National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration, this project would still remain as only a concept. For people who wish read more accurate infor- mation about HROV, I refer them to the

WHOI website about the project http://www.whoi.edu/sbl/liteSite.do?lite- siteid=1810.

There, readers will find a better technical description of the vehicle and links to other, more complete and accurate publi- cations. Finally, I would like to emphasize that this project is a result of bring an exceptional team together. In addition to the players I have mentioned above, there is a large number of highly skilled and experienced people working hard to make

HROV a success.

Andy Bowen

Research Specialist

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole, MA *Editor's Note

Due to a pagination problem in the

October edition, some text from Maggie

Merrill's article — “ROV Man,” October 2006, page 30 — was erroneously cut, for which we apologize. For more information on Nereus from WHOI's Oceanus maga- zine, please visit: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticl e.do?id=14107§ionid=1002

Letters

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