10 Meter MOCNESS Towing Procedure For Globec Broadscale Cruises

1. The 10-meter MOCNESS (MOC-10)sampler is loaded with five 3.0-mm mesh nets.
2. MOC-10 tows are double oblique from surface to 15 meters from bottom. The winch rates for retrieval is ~5m/min. Try to filter at least 4,000 - 5,000m**3 of water per depth stratum sampled. To achieve this a step-oblique tow profile during retrieval may be necessary. Try to space the varioius 'steps' equally within each depth stratum
3. Nets are tripped "on the fly" and the computer command is initiated at ~3 meters from the next designated depth strata to be fished. Note that the computer program command to "Step Net" must be activated twice (allow steps 1-3 to occur then mouse click for steps 1-3 again) as the cam on the MOC-10 frame is set at six clicks.
4. At the completion of the tow, when the MOC-10 is at the surface, any nets not fished must be tripped and released before the sampler is brought aboard the vessel.
5. When entering station/tow information in the MOCNESS windows program before a cast is made, the format in designating a file name is similar to the following example

                              42M1_14.pro   where:
   

   42 = consecutive station number of cruise

   M1 = Identifies the gear to be fished, in the example M1 represents the 1-meter MOCNESS; if the 10-meter MOCNESS is to be fished, enter M10

   _ = underscore (not a space), to separate sets of numbers

   14 = consecutive haul number for the gear (either for MOC1 or MOC10) fished for the cruise

6. If a MOCNESS tow is aborted and a retow is made, a new file name must be entered with the next consecutive haul number. Data collected for a corresponding filename already used cannot be overwritten, only added to.

Last modified: February 2, 1996
February 2, 1995