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1 May 2006

Death of the 'Drop-Cam'?

by Richard, onboard the Esperanza


Gavin and Frank examining
damage to the 'Drop-Cam'
©Greenpeace/Cope
Around lunchtime, just as I was on a Defending Our Oceans project leaders conference call, and being cautiously optimistic about how well things are going out here so far - disaster struck the underwater video and stills research camera, affectionately known as the 'Drop-Cam'. While surveying a coral ridge it had crashed into a rocky outcrop and been broken into pieces.

I rushed down to the helli-deck. As soon as I got there I could see that the rig had been severely damaged and two pieces of the frame were only held together by a thin strand of cable. At first I thought we'd lost the actual camera but in fact, thank goodness, we were able to recover all the bits. Quite how damaged it is we don't know, and we won't have a good idea until Gavin has had a chance to make a thorough investigation. Gavin has put a brave face things, but he is clearly pretty upset and at the very least we will have to construct a whole new frame. In the bottom right corner of the photo at left you can a see close up of where the frame was snapped in two by the force of the collision.

One thing's for sure - it won't be going down into the deeps again today.


The 'Drop-Cam' before
the collision
©Greenpeace/Cope
Gavin and Remon are now working flat-out to see if this delicate mechanism can be saved. If it's humanly possible I know Gavin will bring the Drop-Cam back to life, but maybe this time with some added armour-plating.

- Richard

   

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Comments

What about the damage to the coral ridge?

Posted by: Mark Boudreau at May 2, 2006 1:11 AM

Hi Mark,

as far as we can tell we managed to miss the ridge - it was as Bernhard the drop-cam operator moved the cam away from the ridge that it hit the rock outcrop. Close call though! Better a busted cam than busted coral.

Cheers,

Joss
Web Editor, Esperanza

Posted by: Joss at May 2, 2006 2:02 AM

Hi Guys,

I was out with the Esperanza on the cruise to the Mingulay reef area drop camering and ROVing to 150m, we had the Hybal ROV. All I can say is Gavin and the guys are stars. If he can't fix it, then no one can, even if Gavin has to make new parts out of a tin can it will work!

Keep up the good work,
Andy (SAMS)

Posted by: Andrew Davies at May 2, 2006 11:25 AM

Just to let all of you know you made it to the slashdot site... ;)

Cheerz and enjoy...

Posted by: Tom at May 2, 2006 4:31 PM

They're talking about it on Slashdot today: http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/05/02/114247.shtml

Posted by: Dubsky at May 2, 2006 6:05 PM

Looks pretty bad. Best of luck to Gavin and Remon.

Posted by: Lisa at May 3, 2006 10:46 AM

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