As any scientist knows, a large portion of "research" time is not spent doing research. It's spent getting the equipment to work. Or troubleshooting code. Or gathering resources for field work. Or making repairs to a ship.
It's the last option that concerns me right now. Not too long ago, we got the bad news that our cruise was being rescheduled. The ship was in need of some repairs, and the time spent on those would push all science expeditions back.
With oceanography, it takes quite a lot of effort and money to go to sea. Between operating costs of the ship, compensation for the crew, and scientific equipment, cruises can be very expensive. Thus, ship time is a precious commodity. Research cruises are scheduled back to back so that when one scientific group comes back into port, the next one is there, ready to go. With, of course, a 3-4 day break for the ship itself, as the scientists load and unload all their equipment.
Scheduling cruises is further complicated by the goals of each scientific group. We, specifically, are looking for rain. And there are certain times of the year when it is more likely that we will encounter rain (July - August). There are also certain times of the year when we will be more likely to encounter hurricanes, a very undesirable occurrence. On the other hand, other scientific groups may be monitoring something completely different, like a certain species of fish in the water. They would have different times of the year that would be ideal.
So when a ship goes down for unplanned repair, some unlucky person has the task of re-balancing the needs of all the scientific groups scheduled. This requires a lot of communication with the different scientists, and a knowledge of their needs. Some research projects can handle a change in length of time of the cruise. Others may need to be out for a specific time but could go at different times of the year.
In our case we ended up making a compromise between the two. Our cruise was pushed back slightly to the end of July (unavoidable, really) and shortened by three days. We may have been able to keep the original cruise length, but we would have gone out in late August-September instead, an absolute no-go for us timing-wise.
The good news is that the cruise is still on. There are times when delays and rescheduling don't work out for everyone in the end. Our cruise in particular was originally planned to be completed last year. It's just one of the hazards of doing experimental science.
While we are waiting for the cruise to begin, I've got an awesome guest post lined up from a fellow cruise-goer. You will get to read about our science from someone with a different perspective (chemistry) and a lot more cruise experience.
Stick around for more updates!
More posts in this series:
Upcoming Cruise
Upcoming Cruise, Part II
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5
Update #6
Update #7
Update #8
Update #9
