Announcement and Call for Speakers

You are invited to the sixth ONR/MTS Buoy Workshop, sponsored jointly by the Office of Naval Research and the Buoy Committee of the Marine Technology Society.

Our 2006 Workshop will be held in the Memorial Student Center (MSC) at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station, Texas, convening on Tuesday, March 14 at 8AM and ending after lunch on Thursday, March 16. The Memorial Student Center is part of the large campus of the university with 45,000 students. The program will include site and laboratory tours of the University’s Offshore Technology Research Center, the Haynes Coastal Engineering Lab, and the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group’s facility.

Purpose and Mission

The ONR/MTS Buoy Workshops are organized in order to provide a timely update of oceanographic and other buoy systems, their components, and communication links. You are invited to report about your research and work at the Buoy Workshop. Speakers and attendees are encouraged to report about their new developments and share their experiences, failures, nagging problems, and successes. The Buoy Workshop provides unique opportunities for oceanographic buoy technologists worldwide, as well as for ocean engineering students and professionals in other disciplines, to learn about this exciting and challenging area of expertise and its near endless possibilities.

Since our beginning in 1996, participants have asked that we hold this workshop every two years, with our last being held in St. Petersburg at the University of South Florida in 2004. Since 2000 the workshop is held at or near a site where active buoy technology development and testing work is being performed, so that site visits can become part of the workshop program.

Our mission is to foster the technology and experience exchange in the highly specialized field of oceanographic buoy systems, and take advantage of the informal workshop environment to ease open and focused presentations and discussions for the mutual benefit of all attendees.

The Workshop will consist of a Speaker Program and panel discussions, and site visits. The Speaker Program will be organized in a number of focused topical sessions. Each speaker will have 20 minutes in which to present her or his material. At the end of each session a panel discussion is scheduled for a question and answer period. During past workshops, about 30 technical presentations, organized in theme sessions were held. We would ask that the speakers send an electronic copy of their presentation to Rick Cole rcole@marine.usf.edu for uploading before the workshop, if possible. A direct Internet hookup will be available, as well as a host computer, allowing speakers to download their presentation file the night or morning before their talk.

The Speaker Program will cover significant technological aspects and obstacles of oceanographic and ocean engineering buoy systems and their components worldwide. Topics for the 2006 workshop include:

• Shallow water and deep water buoy based ocean observatories
• Hydrodynamic modeling of buoy systems under wind drag, ocean currents and sea state action
• Buoy design and fabrication
• Buoy mooring configurations, materials, and components
• Light-weight EM and EOM buoy mooring cables and their terminations
• Compliant mooring shock absorbers with incorporated electrical and optical linkage
• Drifting and profiling buoys
• Telemetry and power links between surface buoys, in-line sensors, and ocean bottom sensors
• Unexpected or unexplainable failures, lessons learned, successful fixes
• At sea deployment, servicing, and retrieval

This workshop's special session theme is: Buoy Systems at Sea Performance: Longevity and Failure Modes.

There is an interest from NOAA and Ocean.US to determine the need for an off-year workshop and other opportunities for buoy technicians and operators, to exchange information on buoy operations, lessons learned, problems solved, etc. Such an exchange can also readily happen during the Buoy Workshop. A short meeting is planned after the workshop to address this issue.

Abstracts are due by February 14, 2006. An abstract of 200 to 250 words must be emailed to Judith Rizoli jrizoli@whoi.edu by this date. Upon acceptance of the abstract the author(s) will be notified by e-mail. An electronic copy of each speaker’s presentation material is due latest at the time of the workshop and will be included in the Workshop Record.

Registration fees for Marine Technology Society (MTS) members are $340, for non-MTS members $405. A one-year MTS membership of $75 is included in the non-member fee. Persons registering before February 14, 2006 (postmarked) are entitled to a $50 early bird discount. On-site registration is subject to a $25 surcharge. Registration for students and retired professionals is $150; there is no early bird discount available with this reduced rate.

The registration fee includes refreshments and lunch on conference days, an icebreaker reception on Monday night at the Amerisuites Hotel, a Workshop Social on Tuesday evening held at the George Bush Presidential Library on the TAMU Campus, a banquet at the Messina Hof on Wednesday night, and a CD with the Buoy Workshop Record, which will be mailed shortly after the Workshop.  

Manufacturers and distributors of components and instrumentation for oceanographic buoy systems have come to the workshop in the past to display and discuss their products and/or services. The interaction between the workshop attendees and these organizations proved to be beneficial to both. We welcome the exhibitors again this year; their stands will be available for visits and exchange during breaks. Exhibitors will pay the normal registration fee plus a $100 charge for a display table.  

We will be staying at the brand new Amerisuites College Station Hotel, located at 1100 University Drive East, College Station, Texas 77840.

Sixty rooms have been set aside for a special rate of $80.00 (+13 percent state and local tax) per night for March 13, 14, and 15. The cutoff date for this special rate is February 21, 2006. To reserve a room, you must call the hotel direct at 979-846-9800 and mention “Buoy Workshop 2006”. Hotel fax is 979-846-9801. Amerisuites has agreed to extend the above rate for persons who are arriving a day earlier or leaving a day later.

Starting at 06:30 AM, a complimentary hot breakfast buffet will be available to our group in a separate meeting room, before the buses will shuttle us to the meeting site.

Easterwood is the local airport of College Station, Symbol CLL. It is served by American Airlines from Dallas Fort Worth airport, symbol DFW, with 10 daily flights. From Houston International airport, symbol IAH, 3 daily roundtrip flights are scheduled by Continental Airlines. The Amerisuites Hotel has a complimentary shuttle bus, which picks up guests arriving at Easterwood airport. College Station is 95 miles northwest from Houston International Airport and 105 miles northeast from Austin, Dallas is considerably further to the north. If you are trying to find College Station on the map, it is located 6 miles south of the larger city Bryan.

The Groundshuttle Limousine service is available from Houston International Airport to College Station four times a day on weekdays for $22 one way to their terminal, or $25 directly to the hotel.

Further information is available at www.groundshuttle.com. Phone: 979-739-2824 or -2836, ask for Juan. E-mail is reservations@groundshuttle.com. We recommend reservations be made as soon as possible. Groundshuttle may make additional arrangements if extra service is needed.

For people driving to College Station by car: Get driving directions by clicking on Amerisuites College Station Hotel, click on “find a hotel” on the first line of the site, locate the hotel, and click on Driving Directions. (Note: You cannot use this web site to book your room, this has to be done by phone, see information under Accommodations above.)

University shuttle buses will provide local transportation during the workshop and its related activities. Since we need to know how many persons require bus transportation, please indicate this on your registration.

Those of you arriving by car can drive to the MSC parking garage, adjacent to the Workshop site. Since the Workshop is held during the University’s spring break week, ample parking is expected. Parking fees are $2/hr for the first two hours, after that $1/hr per hour. As alternative: A reserved parking spot is available for $15/day, call 979-862-6585.

For our site tours on March 14 and March 15 all participants are requested to use the bus service, since extra parking is unavailable at the sites.

The Preliminary Speaker Program will be mailed in February 2006, with the final program becoming available shortly before the workshop. The ONR/MTS Buoy Workshop 2006 Record will be compiled on a CD shortly after the workshop. The CD will contain the authors’ abstracts, the speakers’ presentation material, a participant’s list, a list of exhibitors, and a summarizing report. For those not attending the workshop, the CD will be available at a cost of $25.00. For additional information, see contact information below.

We are very grateful for the help of John Walpert and Dr. Norman Guinasso from the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group (GERG) within the College of Geosciences, and Maureen Reap, College of Geosciences, all at Texas A&M University. Their help made it possible that on short notice the Buoy Workshop could be organized at the University next March. (John Walpert reported about the Texas Automated Buoy System (TABS) during previous buoy workshops)

The offices of Dr. Tom Swean from the Office of Naval Research provide continuing administrative support for the Buoy Workshop. The Marine Technology Society is aiding the workshop through the Society’s website services and publicity channels. We appreciate with thanks the ongoing assistance.