The bridge

We hope your weekend has been more relaxing than ours. We were lucky with the weather but tomorrow it will be a different story.

Today is electronic’s day. I never discuss it here but it is essential to us. All pictures are taken on board R.V Vizconde de Eza, which belongs to the Spanish Directorate of Fisheries (Secretaría General de Pesca). I will be brief because the day was long and frankly speaking electronics are not my field of expertise.

Let’s start with the AIS or Automatic Identification System. It’s like a radar and there are two in the bridge, with different antennas just in case. They reach 20 nm but we can reduce it. They can also calculate the time and / or distance to other ships or obstacles. If it is a ship, we can see its name and size. 

AIS. R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

 

The GMDSS (Global Marine Distress Safety System) is another essential piece of equipment. It involves protocols and equipment for safety at sea. The picture shows only part of them. Up right is the NAVTEX, an international automated service for direct printing of information such as weather forecasts, navigational, etc. Below the NAVTEX there is a fax, no mistery there, and below there is the radiotelephony equipment, four neat transmitters and receivers. Below them are the standard C terminals to receive and send messages throught the INMARSAT satellite network, which allows voice and fax communication between ships and between ships and land, as well as weather forecast information, alerts and data transfer. They are the main component of the GMDSS.

GMDSS. R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

The stern console is the place from which fishing is done. The screens show the bottom cartography for our study area, done on board R.V Miguel Oliver, also belonging to the Spanish Directorate of Fisheries within the frame of NEREIDA project. The screen in the middle shows old hauls where we are, and our current position, along with basic bathymetry information. The screen to the right shows the view from the security camera behind the net drum.

From left to right you can see the controller for the engine, to adjust the speed. Above it there is a clinometer, and a compass. The larger panel, below, controls the winches for the bottom gear, the cable to be paid and what has been shot, as well as the power and other basic information (r.p.m., voltage and God knows what. Above this largest panel there are a further three. The one on the left is also for the cable, the other two control the winches for the dredge and the sonar, neither used in this survey. 

The stern console.  R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

 

We have sensors in the trawl and otter doors (red, to the stern). You can see them if you look well. There is a hold for it in the middle of the door, and you can make out the yellow carcass. The other sensor is on the floats line, in the mouth of the trawl. In the picture it looks like it is badly entangled, but far from it. The deckhands fix it and detach it from the trawl at every haul. After the last haul it is brought up to the bridge to charge the battery.

Otter board with sensor (yellow). R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

The trawl sensor seen behind the net. R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

The information collected by the sensors can be seen in two further screens, one for the sensors in the otter boards and the other for the sensor in the trawl.

The register from the sensor in the trawl. Upper line is the headline, below is the rockhopper over the bottom. The scale shows time, the counters are for pitch (right) and roll (left). Also shonw are battery capacity, depth (about 1000 m in this case), vertical opening (4.0 m) and bottom temperature (3.8ºC). R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

 

 

Lots of info. Further up, the depth of each door, in the middle vertical depth scale. Pitch and roll shown in the doors drawing and counters below. In the middle the scale with the horizontal opening during the haul. R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

Finally, there is an echosounder to show us the profile and depth of the bottom: 

Depth on the top, profile of the seabed on the bottom. R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.

… and my work space in the bridge. Now there is hardly anything but I must say the Captain and Officers show endless patience with all the stuff I bring with me. Cables, chargers, hard drives, cameras, lenses, notebooks… stuff that needs space to be stored. But it is no problem, I quickly get some drawer space to keep my “toys” so I don’t have to run constantly between the bridge and my cabin.

Here I am... R.V. Vizconde de Eza. Secretaría General de Pesca.