MT. MITCHELL – Fisheries Research Capabilities

April 11, 2008

GLOBAL SEAS LLC, the operators of the Seattle, Washington based R/V MT. MITCHELL announced last week that new capabilities were recently installed on the ship. The installations included a Kongsberg EM 120 Multibeam Echo Sounder and EM 710 High Resolution Seabed Mapping System as well as survey launch capability and ROV and AUV HiPAP tracking capability.

The R/V MT MITCHELL is a 231 foot ship formerly operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  She was purchased by a partnership between Aleutian Spray Fisheries and Nina Fisheries and is managed by GLOBAL SEAS LLC, a vessel management company headquartered in Seattle.  Principals in these companies, Mr. Cary Swasand and Mr. Robert Desautel have been committed to outfitting the R/V MT MITCHELL with state-of-the-art research instruments providing the best possible data gathering platform for a variety of applications. The Aleutian Spray/Nina partnership brings together over 100 years of fishing industry and vessel management experience in creating a comfortable work platform with multi-mission capabilities and integrating the most modern work and living spaces.  The vessel has seen duty in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in a variety of oceanographic support and survey roles including an environmental and biological assessment of the Persian Gulf in the environmental aftermath of the Gulf War.

Sparing little expense in the workmanship and components of the newly outfitted vessel, the owners proudly offer the R/V MT MITCHELL for charter to various organizations that include the government, commercial, and scientific communities. The Mt. Mitchell’s recent installation of hydro-acoustic equipment provides not only hydrographic survey capabilities but the option of collecting water column data.  Data collected from both multi-beam systems which range in frequency at 12 kHz and 70 kHz to 100 kHz will provide unique acoustics acquisition and post processing capabilities.  This robust suite of equipment found only on this privately owned vessel will provide metrics for habitat mapping as well as bottom backscattering.  The systems have the ability to output data for visualization of biomass within the water column.  These additional capabilities will allow the R/V MT MITCHELL to provide contributions to fisheries science and management.

The new Kongsberg EM710 suite of equipment has many fisheries and fisheries related capabilities and features.  A real time display window is available to view water column backscatter data.  This backscatter data will allow real time estimates of biomass and provide other quantitative information.  This backscatter data can be logged and stored on memory devices for later reference.  Integrated seabed acoustical imaging capability is standard for the EM710 and the software can automatically make bottom classifications for habitat mapping and thus contribute to essential habitat scientific management decisions.