NOWRAMP
2002
R/V
Rapture, Tender One
Posted by Suzanne S. Finney, Anthropology Ph.D. student,
UHM
October 22, 2002
We
are nearing the end of our voyage through the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands and it's been a month filled with fascinating
discoveries and once-in-a-lifetime experiences for both
scientists and crew on board the R/V Rapture. A lot
has been written in the journal entries about what we've
found and where but not much has been said about how we
get to our dive sites. Enter the tenders. There are six
tenders, all Zodiacs, on board to take us out every day;
two Hurricanes, two Mark Vs and two Mark VIs. Each tender
has a tender driver or coxswain. This story is about the
zodiac I've been riding on throughout this trip, the Zodiac
Hurricane known as Tender One.
Tender
One is used by the maritime archaeology team, which consists
of team leader Dr. Hans Van Tilburg, Marc Hughes, an undergraduate
at UH Hilo studying algae on shipwrecks during this trip,
and me. Our driver is one Tony "Ice" Grey, 21,
from California. With four people and dive gear for between
two and three dives the tender can feel a bit cramped but
we have occasionally taken on guests during these trips.
The Hurricane, unlike the other tenders, has a center console,
which makes space even tighter. You can tell we're Tender
One because the number one is painted or glued to the boat
in about five places. You could tell we were Tender One
anyway because we are the only Hurricane Zodiac going out
every day. Tender Two, the other Hurricane, is the emergency
zodiac, in case one of the other ones breaks down.
You
can also tell Tender One by the high speed we reach when
we take the boat up on a plane. Suddenly the engine changes
pitch and the boat races forward. The view the other zodiacs
get is from behind us as we pick up speed and race away
to our destination. No one else can match our speed. Ice
says Tender One has only two speeds, 6 knots or 20 knots
and after the days spent on board I tend to agree.
On
many of these survey days our sites are way out of view
of the Rapture. We watch as the Rapture grows
smaller and smaller, finally disappearing below the horizon.
Our radio always works though and every hour we hear "Top
of the hour check" from the mother ship. Tender One
is always the first to respond. "Rapture, Tender
One," Ice says over the radio to let them know we are
still alive somewhere in the Pacific. We give our GPS coordinates
so the ship can track us as we move from dive site to dive
site. At the end of the day a map of the atoll appears on
the bulletin board, courtesy of Marjo Vierros our data manager,
that shows where all the teams have been surveying. Our
symbol on these maps is an anchor and you can often see
us on the fringe away from the rest of the teams.
Our
team has developed an attachment to Tender One. This is
all the more surprising when you realize what a strain these
rides are on the body. Three weeks into the trip we loaded
up and took off only to hit a few introductory bumps. My
back suddenly decided it didn't like being tossed around
on the pontoon anymore so I moved to what I call the "cushy
seat," not that anything on Tender One could be called
cushy. The cushy seat is the back portion of the bench Ice
uses while steering. I sat facing backwards and held on
for dear life. The movement of the boat is not as noticeable
in the cushy seat and my back had a chance to regroup for
the remainder of the trip.
What
makes Tender One so special is the ride. Picture this; you're
sitting on the pontoon holding on to a rope that runs the
length of the boat, and the handle bar on the center console.
The boat begins to surge forward and everyone on board leans
toward the bow. This puts weight on the front of the boat,
causing the boat to straighten and giving the hard bottom
the chance to rise and skip along the water instead of burrowing
through it. This increases the efficiency of the engine
and makes for a much faster ride. It also means that if
you're not holding on you could find yourself bounced right
out of the boat. We all hold on.
Our
most eventful ride was at Kure. There is a passage into
the reef that can be difficult to negotiate if the waves
are breaking and to go through takes some skill at knowing
when there may be a lull in the wave action. Ice turned
the boat into the waves and we took off, going our typical
planing speed. The waves were higher than I had seen them
before and without warning we hit one head on that left
our boat high and dry and out of the water. Two waves later
it happened again, our boat lifted completely out of the
water, the prop whirled madly in the air and then dropped,
smash, right back onto the water. I think that may have
been when my back started wondering if these trips were
such a good idea.
There
has been talk on board about a t-shirt design that embodies
the spirit of the NOWRAMP trip. The maritime archaeology
team decided that our t-shirt should show the Hurricane
Zodiac Tender One. Nothing describes our experiences on
this trip like the vision of Tender One heading out to one
more wreck site going at top speed while we hang on and
smile.
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