Nv-shuttle for BCLME

Chelsea Technologies Group (CTG) has delivered an instrumented, towed undulating oceanographic recorder, Nv-Shuttle, to the Marine and Coastal Management Group of the Department of Environment and Tourism, Cape Town, South Africa to be utilised within its ongoing and future monitoring programmes in the Benguela system. This acquisition has been funded by the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) programme, within which Angola, Namibia and South Africa jointly identify and manage trans-boundary BCLME resources. The Nv-Shuttle will first be used on the RV Africana and the RV Algoa to complement the routine St Helena Bay and SARP monitoring lines which have been undertaken monthly since April 2000. Classical monitoring at fixed locations is to be complemented by either towing continuously back along the monitoring line or by towing between stations and retrieving the Nv-Shuttle every ten nautical miles. This will be repeated as often as possible for one year and the results compared to fixed-station data. Scientists from Namibia and Angola will be invited to Cape Town to participate in the cruises to enable them to build up experience in deploying, operating and retrieving the Nv-Shuttle and analysing data collected at sea and in the laboratory ashore. Next, the equipment will be deployed on the monitoring line off Namibia on the RV Welwitschia and on the Namibe monitoring line in southern Angola during cruises of opportunity. The use of optical sensors for detection of phytoplankton groups or HABS using an optical plankton counter for zooplankton may be added to future sensor payloads. The Nv-Shuttle supplied for the BCLME programme is fitted with a MINIpack CTD-F to measure conductivity, temperature, depth and fluorescence, and an Autonomous Plankton Sampler (APS). The MINIpack CTD-F is a small, robust and high-performance CTD-F.