Going for the GUSTO (Mooring)

In the fall of 2007, WHOI’s mooring specialists had a difficult task: try to recover instruments from the deep water even though they couldn’t see them. The work required use of 3,500-meter-long line (nearly two miles in length) that the engineers designed, on the spot, specifically for this unique mooring recovery. They crafted their line from wire, polypropylene rope, floats to keep it buoyant, and several metal, four-pronged hooks (above Jeff Lord’s hand, on left) with rounded edges to keep them from cutting the mooring’s wire. The approach was successful. (Photo by Patricia White, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)