14 SEPTEMBER 2017 • FOGHORN FOGHORNFOCUS: TECHNOLOGY +1 920.686.5117 sales@burgerboat.com burgerboatcommercial.com Proudly built in the USA Burger is recognized worldwide for quality custom vessels that provide years of dependable service. Quality Commercial Vessels... Built by Burger to Your Requirements • Aluminum and Steel Fabrication • Passenger Vessels • Research Vessels • Fast Crew Boats • Fast Supply Boats • Wind Farm Support Vessels • Fishing Vessels • Other Vessels to 260' (80m) Under Construction 103’ (31m) Steel Explorer Vessel Perhaps, though, our most important partners are the users of the charts and data. Coast Survey encourages open communication and feedback from captains and pilots as they navigate the nation’s waterways. The seafloor is dynamic and always changing. It’s imperative that mariners are working with the latest information. Mariners know that the seafloor — as well as rivers and coastal waterways — can change dramatically in the course of a just a few hours due to a large storm, so if they spot a charting discrepancy, we ap- preciate hearing about it so we can prioritize a survey of the area and update the data to share with other mariners. For example, in 2012 Hurricane Sandy significantly impacted the coast of New York and the surrounding area. NOAA and our contractors responded immediately to map these changes within days, to ensure that water-based commerce and transport would not be adversely affected by the storm’s changes. Working with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Maritime Transportation System Recovery Unit, NOAAsurveyors provided near-real time updates on under- water object detection (including debris and shipping con- tainers) that allowed the USCG Captain of the Port to make decisions and ultimately reopen. How should mariners chart discrepancies? There are several ways that mariners can report chart dis- crepancies to Coast Survey: • Contact your regional NOAA Navigation Manager! • Online using our chart discrepancy website nauticalcharts. noaa.gov/discrepancy • Call 1-888-990-6622; • Contribute to crowd source tools like ActiveCaptain to share new information live with other users in real time; Okay. Let’s talk about the surveying and mapping tech- niques used today to keep up with the changing conditions that mariners need to navigate. What technology is NOAA using to chart the waterways? Hydrographic surveys support Coast Surveys charting Progression of survey technologies. From left to right: leadline, singlebeam, and multibeam. Image source: NOAA