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Stre-e-e-etch

February 8, 2013

Oceanographic moorings sometimes include a surface buoy connected by chain or cable to instruments below. In rough weather, rapidly changing tension on the chain causes noise that can interfere with the instruments. The invention of a stretchable “Gumby hose” changed all that. The black rubber hose (shown here between two mooring floats) is capable of stretching 2.5 times its relaxed length and eliminates noise interference. WHOI mooring technician Will Ostrom is shown here in November 2012 preparing to deploy a new hose containing 24 coiled wires that carry signals and data from instruments to a surface buoy. (Photo by John Lund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)