Watch and Learn

Peter Liarikos (foreground), bosun on R/V Neil Armstrong, gets help from a representative of Markey Machinery in learning how to control the ship’s hydro winches and new launch-and-recovery system (LARS). The winches are a critical part of the Neil Armstrong‘s scientific equipment that permit scientists to reach deep beneath the surface to collect samples or data about fundamental oceanographic processes. On Neil Armstrong, they are equipped with sensors that allow them to compensate for the ship’s motion to keep an instrument such as a CTD rosette or a large volume pump stable in the water column.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)