This project is a continuation of work performed by key Woods Hole Group personnel since 1989.  The project involves instrumentation of oil rigs or drill ships for Texaco in the Gulf of Mexico.  The system originally was comprised of a downward-looking 75 kHz Narrow Band Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, a wave staff and electromagnetic current meter which were used for directional wave measurements, a suite of meteorological sensors, and a PC with proprietary display and data archiving software.  Also included was a UPS which had enough storage capacity to run the entire system for 5 days in the event of a rig evacuation due to a hurricane, as well as circuitry to protect the system from voltage transients.  The system electronics and UPS were housed in a specially-constructed 20-foot container which was used as a portable base station.  The system was originally deployed on the Ocean Rover in 1989, and was later moved to the Zapata Lexington, and the Discoverer 534 (in 1990).  In 1997 the system was installed on the Transocean anchored deep-water drill rig Oceanstar for Texaco, with the 75 kHz ADCP as the sole operational sensor.

For this installation, Woods Hole Group ocean engineers designed and supervised the construction of a fixed mounting system for the ADCP as well as all the other facilities on board the vessel necessary to operate the system.  Woods Hole Group engineering and technical personnel, under an ongoing maintenance contract, visit the rig periodically to inspect and maintain the system and download the collected data.  Woods Hole Group is also responsible for ongoing QA of the collected data, and preparation of oceanographic data reports on a per-hole (roughly quarterly) basis for Texaco.