October 28, 2014 — Scientists from the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology drove up to the Fairhaven Shipyard before dawn Tuesday with a bright yellow, 6-foot torpedo-shaped object they call Blue.
Blue is something called a marine glider, an autonomous underwater vehicle named after famed solo mariner Joshua Slocum by its manufacturer. Blue is designed to go to sea for weeks at a time to gather information about the water and send it back to scientists.
Several dozen marine gliders are being deployed along the Atlantic coast by about 30 institutions, all working to creating a temperature map to further understand what is happening at the bottom of the sea, according to lead scientist Wendell Brown, an SMAST oceanographer. Some day in the future, the knowledge gained could help scientists better understand ocean ecosystems including fisheries.
As dawn began to break over the shipyard’s marina, Brown explained that the glider, which was built in Falmouth and costs about $100,000, “has ballast very carefully adjusted to the density of the water.” It can take on water to sink, expel water to rise and propel it forward slowly and maneuver with small wings. The result is an extremely efficient means of propulsion, compared with, for instance, motor-driven propellers.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times