Sunday, March 25, 2001

By Ward Sanderson
Naples bureau

Ward Sanderson / Stars and Stripes Don Bourgeois, a Naval Oceanographic Office engineer, and Italian naval Lt. Cmdr. Luigi Sinapi operate more than $2 million worth of mapping gear as they survey the Bay of Gaeta by boat. A team is mapping Gaeta's surrounding seabed to make it safer for large vessels to make port visits.

GAETA, Italy — A crack team of Navy oceanographers is using a $2.5 million mapping system to log every rise, fall, nook and cranny of the Bay of Gaeta — home of the U.S. 6th Fleet.

They’re using a silicon solution to solve a problem as old as the ancient mariner: Keeping ships from running aground in shallows.

What really distinguishes this team, despite the cost of the gear, is the speed at which it can produce a map. Instead of the usual three to seven years, these officers and engineers can survey a bay and produce a detailed map in about a month’s time.

"We’re also bringing to bear technology that never before existed," said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Nicklin of the Naval Oceanographic Office, based at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Nicklin and others are maneuvering a 30-foot boat up and down Gaeta’s port area, collecting sonar and global positioning system data as they go.

"It’s kind of like mowing your grass," Nicklin said. "We go back and forth until we’ve got full coverage."

The team will turn over a map to the 6th Fleet by mid-April. Its flagship, the La Salle, is heading to Malta on Monday for three months of repairs. In the meantime, the fleet intends to use Gaeta as a port call for other ships.

The problem, 6th Fleet’s Cmdr. Bob Kiser said, is that flat-bottomed La Salle rides high in the water. Another ship, such as a destroyer, cleaves a deep wedge into the water, making it more prone to grounding. According to the survey team, that’s what happened to the USS Guadalcanal in 1992.

From the outside, the survey boat trying to prevent a recurrence looks like an average 30-footer. Something weekenders would fish from. Inside, though, it’s a James Bond hideout — computer screens flickering with coordinates and vectors representing the sea bottom.

"There is not a boat in the world that is more state of the art," Nicklin said.

The team travels across the globe. Some of the team are members of the first group to ever earn graduate degrees in hydrography at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Lt. Cmdr. Brian Connon, who graduated from the program with Nicklin, said the process is fast and accurate but takes planning. The team had to measure the rise and fall of Gaeta’s tides over a lunar cycle. That was so the varying depths at different days could be factored into final charts.

But why survey anyway? Seamen as far back as the Romans used the waters off Gaeta. Didn’t they have a map?

Connon said conditions can change drastically between chartings.

"There could be new construction in the harbor when we have new piers," he said. "Or you could have a major storm which could significantly change the bottom."

During the actual surveying, computer screens show real-time pictures of the sea bottom. They are constructed from sonar readings taken directly beneath the boat and from a wider 127-beam swath. Engineers also submerge the "fish" — a silver, torpedo-looking device — to gain even more sonar information.

Kiser of the 6th Fleet was especially impressed by the discovery of a sunken fishing vessel. It was about 30 feet long, and the computer images were accurate down to anchor drag marks on the sea bed.

Such detail requires a lot of eye-in-the-sky attention. Ideally, the boat locks onto at least five satellites to do its work. It has to work in more than three dimensions.

There’s als time to be considered, Nicklin added. "because we’re moving."

The Navy will share its completed map with Italy. "It is a joint survey operation decided at a very high level," said Lt. Cmdr. Luigi Sinapi of the Italian Navy.

Back to March's stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from February, 2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home