NOPP P.I. Meeting Minutes
November 3, 2000

FleetLink PI Meeting on November 3, 2000 at MIT's Sea Grant Office

Present: R. Barnaby, A. Bucklin, K. Ekstrom, C. Goudey, R. Groman, C. Pendleton, P. Wiebe

Absent: D. Holsom, D. Mountain, G. Williams

Guests: Jay Childs, Bob Kohl, Kim ???, Cameron McLellan

Updates and Comments

Peter suggested that the National Weather Service be contacted to see if they are still interested in supporting the data acquisition, in particular, whether they would help to fund the data communications costs.

Bob G. reported that he found a bug in his software that prevented catch data from being processing correctly. The bug wasn't apparent until more catch data were transmitted.

The fisherman discussed the "42° 20'" program that provides options to fish by the month or for the year.

Bob K. said that he'd likely be shrimping starting in January. Craig said he'd start shrimping then too. Both will run out of days to do bottom fishing so will have to switch to a different fishery. However, Cam will still be doing deep water fishing.

Bob G. asked that data transmissions be slowed down or stopped until the three ship demonstation phase in order to preserve the data communications funding. This was discussed later. See below.

We discussed the status of the gear sensor package. It did work under certain conditions, and Garry reported to Ann by phone that it is nearly ready.

The fishermen thought that the FleetLink system would be most useful to them if it provided the following:

- VTS capable (ala BoatTracks)

- Receive updated weather forcasts on the boat

- Receive reports from the fish exchange(s)

-- current prices
-- boats hailed
-- poundages

- Ability to send in their hail to the fish exchange

The Portland Fish Exchange (and maybe the Gloucester Fish Exchange) have a price hail line where you can find out the current fish prices. But this information is not available on the web. Rollie will contact Bruce at the PFE to see if he could type the price information onto the computer and make it available either via the web or ftp. Once there, Bob G. has the software that could e-mail it the vessels.

- Collect discard and by-catch information

-- There was much discussion about the sensitivity of this information and how the regulators could use these data against the fisherman, based on past history. However, there was general agreement that this information could be very valuable to both the fisherman and the researchers.

- "Deck Cam" - Deck mounted video camera mounted on the vessel to show the fishing activities. The fisherman present felt that it could have a very positive impact on the public's knowledge of fishing.

- Ability to see the bottom temperature overlayed on the track plot and to correlate these data with what they caught.

- Two-way e-mail

-- E.g. report broken equipment and have replacement ready at the dock

- Real-time updates about NMFS' closure information

-- Oftentimes fishermen don't have easy access to the most recent information about where they can and cannot fish. This information is difficult to find. It is in the Federal Register and perhaps the Maine Development Corporation could put it (and related regulations) together for e-mailing to the vessels. Bob G. said that a "Request" option in the comment lines could be added that would request such information be e-mailed to them, once it is available.

- Ability to dim the screen for night time viewing.

Bob K. (or was it Cam?) mentioned that Dr. Goodwin, a high school science teacher, used the FleetLink data in his classroom. This is evidence of an educational component in our project.

Jay Childs took videos of the meeting and interviewed several of the participants in preparation for an 8 - 10 minute video describing the FleetLink project. He will take additional videos on-site.

Ken handed out a list of 15 "FleetLink System Maintenance and projected Updates" items. [Ken, sent it to me in digital form and I'll include it on-line.]

Notes from Ann

1. Field demonstration plans: All three boats should now turn off data telemetry, but continue to record data to their hard drives. This will save money for the definitive demonstration period, but will still allow us to debug the systems. Goal: all sensors, all boats, good data to web site during January 9 - March 15, 2001. Craig and Bob will be shrimping and allow demonstration of value of temperature profiles on gear-based sensor; Cam will be fishing on Georges Bank and beyond, and will compare gear-based sensor with NetMinder temperature sensor if possible. Timing for the field demonstration phase is intended to coincide with shrimp season and the publication of SeaTechnology article.

2. Please send Ann comments on the draft Sea Technology article. Images for publication are also needed. Craig, please do try to send pictures in the S&C wheelhouse!

3. Please send Ann (and FleetLink PIs) suggested fishermen and their boats for inclusion in the several proposals planned for submission. The several projects to be proposed include:

- Northeast Consortium (Cliff): reducing bycatch during shrimping, using measurement of water column temperature structure and real-time communication across the fleet

- NMFS / New England Fisheries Management Council (Peter and Cam): use of FleetLink systems for research on effectiveness of rolling closure areas, modification for use as Vessel Tracking Systems (VTS) that meet NMFS guidelines and regulations.

- NOPP Ocean Observing Systems renewal (Ann): Twelve more systems for time/space coverage for ocean observing, costs of operation of 15 boats for one year, data assimilation ?? (with Dan Lynch), outreach to high schools with FleetLink data on PCs and two boats with video feeds.

3. Critical needs for immediate resolution:

- catch data are not being logged in the database (Bob G. and Ken)

- gear sensor RF telemetry needs checking: sensor software must accommodate possible problems with 900 mHz cutouts; set-up to allow viewing in wheelhouse? (Gary)

- gear sensors functioning on all three boats for definitive demo period January 9 - March 15 (shrimp season) (Gary)

- splice additional cable for SST sensor on Susan & Caitlyn (Ken and Gary)

- check possible problem with placement of SST sensor near keel cooler and skin tank heat exchanger in Adventurer and Glenna & Jacob (Peter ask Dave Hosom)

- get all sensors sending good data before turning back on telemetry (Gary and Ken)

- exposed plugs on RS-485 junction box need dummy plugs on Adventurer and Glenn & Jacob; all three boats need stronger clips or tie-wraps or hose clamps on junction box doors (Gary)

4. Next meeting: Next PI meeting will be Wednesday, December 20th in Portsmouth NH. Major topics:

- preparation for definitive demonstration period with all three vessels
- strategic and practical preparation for proposal writing
- preparation for Maine Fishermen's Forum
- progress on video
- Guests: Dr. Dan Lynch (data assimilation)
Dr. Dean Goodwin (high school teacher for outreach; need contact info from Kim)

Prepared by Bob Groman and Ann Bucklin
Original: November 7, 2000
Modified: April 30, 2001