Sail for Science

December 15, 2024December 30, 2024

Presentation of our project to sailors

During our stay in Trinidad, we had the pleasure of meeting with fellow sailors to present our project, demonstrate our CTD system, and discuss how they could play a role in collecting oceanographic data. The sailors were highly engaged, showing great interest in the results of our year-long voyage and in modern techniques for gathering oceanographic information.

Our lively discussions explored how CTD measurements could become part of routine sailing practices and, more importantly, how to make CTD systems financially accessible to the average sailor. One promising solution is to establish a rental and maintenance system for CTD devices, allowing sailors to borrow equipment in exchange for contributing their data. Another idea is to commercialize ocean data collection, enabling sailors to choose how to invest in this initiative with the potential to earn financial compensation for their contributions.

I hope that over time, the perspective on citizen science from government-funded ocean research programs will shift, recognizing the valuable role sailors can play. Perhaps one day, sailors will even be able to offset their voyage expenses by collecting oceanographic data.

I have a dream…

October 21, 2024February 10, 2025

Visiting RBR

During our stay in my hometown of Ottawa, I visited RBR, where I worked for 22 years before retiring and sailing away. There were pleasant meetings with my colleagues and a warm welcome in the Calibration lab. I made a presentation “One Year under the Sail for Science”, in which I talked about the results of our year-long voyage. I brought with me our CTD measuring system for recalibration, which the company President Greg Johnson offered to do for me free of charge, and with gratitude handed it over to the Calibration lab. I was glad to participate in this process, having personally calibrated the conductivity measuring channel. “Post-cruise” recalibration of the CTD measuring system is an important part of the quality control of the data collected during the expedition, allowing to estimate the errors of the collected data. This recalibration confirmed the high quality of the metrological characteristics of the RBRconcertoCTD system. Now our CTD measuring system is again ready for measurements in the next expedition season. Thank you, RBR!

Presentation “One Year under Sail for Science” at the RBR Lunch and Learn

Me with CTD at the Conductivity calibration bath

Jun Wang with my CTD at the temperature calibration station

Yassine Toba is processing calibration data for my CTD. That was my workplace for many years!

Aman Kaur is doing Winkler oxygen determination for DO calibration

Danny Lang is in charge of pressure calibration

October 18, 2024April 16, 2025

Guildline’s Standards

We are pleased to announce a generous sponsorship gift to our project from Guildline Instruments—a package of IAPSO Standard Seawater! We will use it in future expeditions to ensure the quality control of salinity determination with our CTD measuring system, using control samples measured by the onboard Micro-salinometer MS-310. IAPSO Standard Seawater is crucial for calibrating salinometers and is an internationally recognized standard in oceanography for determining practical salinity. Guildline proudly serves as its distributor in the Americas.

Moreover, Guildline is the manufacturer of Autosal and Portasal salinometers—renowned for being the most accurate salinometers in the world. During our visit to Guildline, we had the pleasure of meeting our former colleague Metrologist Kai Malorny and the company’s President Richard Timmons. Richard graciously gave us a tour, showing us both the production and service facilities, as well as sharing the latest developments. It was fascinating to see one of the first potentiometers, developed by T.M. Dauphinee more than 70 years ago, on display in the company museum. This development laid the foundation for the Autosal salinometer, invented and created by Dauphinee in 1973 and still produced with some modifications by Guildline as the industrial standard in oceanographic salinometry. Today, Autosal’s prototype is even featured in the Canada Science and Technology Museum!

This visit was particularly meaningful for me, as it marked the start of my Canadian career 22 years ago. I was delighted to witness Guildline’s steady development, maintaining its reputation over 60 impressive years! To commemorate our meeting, Richard presented us with a bottle of his signature Timmons Estate Port, made by him using a unique process. I’m confident that the “presidential” standard of winemaking will pair beautifully with the standard seawater!

Cheers to the highest standards of Guildline!