This outcomes report summarizes oceanographic technical services for R/V Pelican in support of NSF research days for the calendar years 2018 -2024.  Over the course of this cooperative agreement, R/V Pelican was able to successfully complete over 1217 operational days in support of science while maintaining an average schedule of 174 operational days per year. Eight different federal agencies and research groups representing a diverse source of funding funded these days aboard R/V Pelican.

R/V Pelican is operated by Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) as an Oceanographic Research Vessel as designated by the United States Coast Guard and is maintained as an American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) Class L/L vessel. LUMCON is a operational member of UNOLS and R/V Pelican is a designated vessel in the Academic Research Fleet (ARF). The vessel is available for legitimate research and education programs of Consortium members, state and federal agencies, other nonprofit groups, and oceanographic industries. The reliability, utility and seaworthiness of this vessel have been well demonstrated. R/V Pelican successfully conducts scientific trawling, large box core sampling, thirty-foot piston cores, shallow seismic surveys, current meter array and benthic boundary array deployment and recovery. R/V Pelican has also successfully conducted plankton sampling, hydrographic casts with CTD-rosette system and underway sampling with towed water sampling systems. These operations depend on qualified and experienced Technicians provided in part by the funding of this grant.

Technical Services at LUMCON is a part of the Marine Operations Department located at the DeFelice Marine Center in Cocodrie, LA.. The group consists of a Marine Superintendent who oversees the department, supervises Marine Technicians and reports to LUMCON’s Executive Director.

The marine technician department at LUMCON services the UNOLS vessel, R/V Pelican.   The ship sails with seven crew as follows: captain, first mate, two engineers, cook, deckhand, and a marine technician.

Technicians are responsible for all scientific gear aboard R/V Pelican. This includes all items listed on the UNOLS shared equipment inventory under R/V Pelican; CTD, ADCP, Echosounder, GPS, underway flow-through, meteorological equipment, etc. The technicians and engineers share responsibility for maintaining the instrumentation and proper function of the three winches. The technicians maintain satellite communications and the ship’s computer network. Typically, any electronics aboard the ship fall under the tech’s responsibility including the bridge navigational equipment. This is in part due to the small crew size but also due to the marine tech’s unique skill set. Onshore, techs are involved with maintenance of equipment, preparation for future cruises, and any other tasks deemed necessary to support the Vessel Operations department.

LUMCON maintained a six year Cooperative Agreement (CA) with the National Science Foundation from 2018 thru 2024 for the operation of R/V Pelican (NSF Award OCE-18227654) and included a Rapid Response Research Grants (RAPID) cruise aboard another vessel (R/V Point Sur). A detailed breakdown of these cruises is as follows:

There were 413 operational aboard R/V Pelican funded by NSF during this CA which consisted of approximately 34% of the total operational days. Forty-three discrete cruises were included in the 413 operational funded days by NSF which averaged 10 operational days per project. NSF-funded cruises consisted of 30 operational days aboard R/V Point Sur, a vessel owned by University of Southern Mississippi but managed and operated by LUMCON. Of these 30 operational days, the RAPID cruise days were primarily focused on research activities involved in sampling oceanographic conditions associated with Hurricane Harvey. This RAPID funding was utilized during the winter of 2018.  Additionally, 20 operational NSF days were employed by Dr. Li of LSU aboard RV Acadiana, a 58 ft. research vessel owned and operated by LUMCON.  This vessel was used to deploy buoys near offshore oil platforms.

Last Modified: 12/06/2024
Modified by: Joseph D Malbrough