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Where’s the hub of the ship?

Of course the master, Ian Taylor, would swear that it’s the bridge, but everyone else has their own ideas about the ship’s most important location.

Engine room

Ian Taylor, RV Southern Surveyor Master.

Mike Yorke-Barker in the engine room.

Mark Lewis on trawl deck.

The mess in action.

As you might expect, the chief engineer Mike Yorke-Barber will tell you it’s the engine room.And he has a pretty strong case. In addition to housing the ship’s main diesel engine, the engine room provides the ship’s water, heating and electricity. Mike says it’s also the ship’s most stable location in a rough sea. Despite the noise factor, people have been known to drag their mattresses down to the control room in a desperate effort to get some sleep.

Operations room

Any of the ship’s electronics technicians would claim the operations room is the nerve centre. There they sit like spiders amid a web of wires and work-stations connecting to the ship’s electronic measuring instruments. Down below, housed in the open-bottomed, ‘moon pool’ are the transducers of single and multi-beam acoustic sounders; a new ‘Sonardyne’ transceiver that gives an exact fix on the position of deployed instruments; and the ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) which records current direction and speed. They also keep a track of the ship’s route, and log wind, light and temperature data from the weather station above the ship’s bridge.

The operations room has hotlines to the bridge and the deck, so it can coordinate and control the deployment of additional devices such as the water sampling system and the stereo video camera array. Its computers are networked with the bridge, with the data centre next door, and with the ship’s various laboratories.

Trawl deck

The ship’s rear deck hosts an eclectic array of physical sampling equipment — trawl nets, corers, grabbers, sleds and dredges — designed to gather all kinds of scientific bounty. Biological technician Mark Lewis has the job of ship-shaping the laboratories and the sampling gear. His tasks range from overseeing the maintenance of a giant benthic sled, (affectionately known as ‘Sherman’), to checking the chains and connections that ensure the equipment’s safe return.

Fish lab

When the Southern Surveyor is engaged in biological sampling, the ‘fish lab’ sees plenty of action. The haul is tipped into a hopper at the rear of the lab, and whichever scientists have no good reason for doing something else are roped in to help sort, measure and weigh, record, discard or fillet. Some specimens are photographed, and some are preserved in formalin for later study. It’s a 12-hour shift and can be cold, hard, work. On this voyage the ship is expected to complete about 70 or 80 trawls.

Galley and mess

The ship’s mess seats about 30 people and is expertly staffed by chief cook Tom Condon, second cook Wayne Hatton and chief steward Scott Chisholm. The food they provide — often under difficult conditions — is spectacular: cooked meals for breakfast, lunch and tea, and no shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables, and pudding!

‘We still put the meals out, no matter how rough it is,’ says Wayne. ‘You do the best you can, sometimes under pretty shocking conditions. But they’ve got to eat, and when they eat a good meal they’re happy.’

More information on:

• Deck plans/layout of the Southern Surveyor