Things are heating up…

Corvallis has been shrouded in a smokey haze this week as we feel the effects of the giant fires raging to the south as the temps have been well up into the 90s.  On the project side, things are heating up as well (how’s that for a segue ?).  Our largest change so far (and hopeful largest of the project) has been approved.  We’re adding 6′ and solving our foreseeable weight and volume problems.

Here’s a graphic of our new General Arrangement Drawings that incorporate the added length.  Lots of positive to see if you know where to look.  For example, we’ve consolidated all the ship’s officer staterooms together on the O2 level. The 2nd and 3rd engineers are next to each other which will be nice as these rooms will have special alarms that signal when there are problems with the machinery spaces.  One other big change we’ve made is to move the Datapresence Center down to the first platform below the main deck.  We’ve had it on the O1 level since the very beginning. It took someone from the outside of the project who was new to say “why not move it down.” We had seen it up there so long, it just wasn’t something we’d considered doing, but it solved a lot of problems and opened up several good opportunities for staterooms, air handling systems, and the relocation of the hospital that now has access directly from the weather deck and rescue boat.

We’re set to begin actually building these things in November. I think we’ll all be very glad to see some physical progress after all these years of planning and designing.

We’ve also settled our schedule summary, for now, that includes the revised delivery date for the first ship and sets the baseline delivery for University of Rhode Island’s ship.  Here’s a link to the updated schedule.  You’ll notice that it actually shows three ships.  I should be very clear to say that the third ship has NOT been funded by Congress yet. The third ship is on here (and all the dates associated with it) are just our best guesses.  So don’t get excited.  But if we do get funded, and the funding comes in not too late in the year, this is kind of how the third ship would play out.

We’ve added a key new member to our team in the last few weeks.  Daryl Swensen has joined as the “Transition to Operations Coordinator.”  Daryl was with OSU a few years back leading OSU’s Marine Technician group. He brings a wealth of sea-going and science planning experience to the team which is good, because it’s his job to get the new ships outfitted, all the science gear and systems tested, and the ships ready for service in the academic fleet. Welcome aboard Daryl!

Ok. That will do it for now.  Next week is that Annual Review I mentioned so we have lots to do to make sure we’re squared away for that.  Enjoy what’s left of the summer! If you’re in the west, watch out for the fires! And, as always, thanks for reading and feel free to subscribe using the link above.