experiments where a ship can be kept in the vicinity of the buoy or 

 where the weather can be selected, lighter gear can be used in the 

 mooring. 



Within this framework of anchored, deep-water, long-term, 

 all-weather buoys, I would guess that perhaps 50 or 75 successful 

 moorings have been made. I am sure I do not know about all of 

 them but I think this is probably a conservative maximum number. 

 Based on the importance which the speakers, both yesterday and 

 today, placed on such systems, it seems like a remarkably small 

 effort, particularly since the buoy can accumulate a type of data 

 which ships cannot. 



Existing buoy experiments, or buoy types, may be divided 

 into four classes: 



In the first, the buoy records only data from surface observa- 

 tions and these are stored in the buoy. Surface observations are 

 made from a few feet underwater up to and including meteorologi- 

 cal observations. This buoy must be visited and the records 

 recovered. This is perhaps the most prevalent type of buoy. It 

 is characterized by the effort of Scripps Institution of Oceanography 

 in fall-out ani atomic-blast areas, where they use taut-wire 

 moorings with skiffs as surface floats. There are many other 

 exannples . 



The next more complicated class is the one in which only 

 surface observations are obtained, but the data is telemetered. 

 This is characteristic of the meteorological buoy which has been 

 moored in the center of the Gulf of Mexico. That mooring is a 

 slack-rope mooring, and I believe the buoy has been in place for 

 about 2 year s. 



The third extension of the buoy system is that in which mea- 

 surements are made in the deep water, but no information is 

 transferred to the surface. This might be characterized by the 

 present line of 15 buoys which the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

 Institution has installed between Cape Cod and Bermuda. In this 

 case the mooring is senni-taut plastic rope, and internally re- 

 cording instruments (primarily current meters) are installed in 

 the mooring at various depths down to the bottom. It is, of course, 

 necessary to pull the whole mooring up to retrieve the records. 

 The instrvunents are then refurbished and the mooring reset. 



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