STABILITY 



Another asset of the tower is its 

 stability (and high safety factor) under 

 strong winds, waves, and current. It has 

 withstood storm waves up to 18 feet high. 



The main reason for the tower's 

 steadiness (and the way it differs from 

 practically all other offshore towers) lies 

 in the positioning of the legs. Instead of 

 being perpendicular to the bottom, the 

 legs slant out from the tower platform at 

 a 5-degree angle from the vertical, form- 

 ing a broad base on the sea floor. In 

 addition, the tower is structurally rigid, 

 and is firmly anchored to the sea floor by 

 12. 75-inch steel pins driven a distance of 

 63 feet through the bottom sediment to the 

 hard substrata. 



Since the tower does not move, it 

 provides a fixed reference point for all 

 types of water motion studies (waves, cur- 

 rents, turbulence, and tides). The tower's 

 stability also permits the use of instru- 

 ments such as television and motion- 

 picture cameras and sound transducers. 

 These latter require constancy in depth 

 and orientation for optimum efficiency. 



21 FT 



I 13 FT 



6 FT 



60 FT 



63 FT 



12 



