Hello all,
We put together a video from a dive yesterday. After spending the week at Aqua Nor in Trondheim, Norway, we helped a friend recover a broken mooring line. We hadn’t prepared for this at all but we did the best with what was available.
(Near the dive location)
We used the Water Linked Underwater GPS system during this dive to help find the mooring line. On Google maps’ satellite imagery, the mooring buoy and boat were still in the image, so we were able to pinpoint the exact coordinates where the line should be. Visibility was around 5-10 meters, so between the GPS position and visual search, it was pretty easy to find the line.
(Target location)
We don’t have a grabber available for the ROV yet so we rigged up a big fishing hook that was already on the boat with a few zip ties.
The ROV was able to hook the line easily and bring it near the surface. It was high tide while we were doing this and, unfortunately, the line didn’t reach close enough to the surface for us to reattach the buoy. We pulled up hard on the ROV tether but eventually broke off the zip ties that held the hook in place.
It was a fun mission and would have gone perfectly if the line had been a bit longer! Just wanted to share the details as well as the video, which you can watch below.
-Rusty
