RESEARCH AT SEA

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30367, 17 February 1964, Page 3

RESEARCH AT SEA

Voyage By The Tui Scientific examination of the sea around New Zealand will be taken a stage further by the voyage of the naval research ship Tui which sailed from Auckland on Saturday. With scientists erf- the Naval Research' Laboratory on board, the Tui will make a two-month cruise obtaining information which will be useful to such projects as submarine detection and tuna fishing. Mr P. H. Barker, principal scientific officer at the laboratory, will direct the trials. Knowledge of the nature and movement of the sea is important to the Royal New Zealand Navy’s Hydrographic Surveying Service and essential to the submarine detection work being undertaken by the Naval Research Laboratory. As a result, the survey ship Lachlan makes a variety ■of sea records as she surveys, naval ships are made available- for oceanographic cruises (including one made last month by the Endeavour in the Southern Ociean) and the Naval Research Laboratory has made'a series of extended cruises' in the' Tui south of New Zealand, across the Tasman to Australia and deep into the Pacific. Among the records the Tui will make during her current cruise are the temperatures of the sea at the surface and at depths down to the bottom.

In addition, special equipment will make a continuous record of the sea bottom, its shape and the bottom material. Ocean currents, wave motion and background noises in the sea Will also be studied. The Tui’s cruise will take her widely around the New Zealand coast, with concentration on the Cook and Foveaux Strait areas.