The R/V Hugh R. Sharp. Photo by Jon Cox
Landlubbers and seafarers alike can now keep tabs on their favorite oceangoing ship. A new tracking map on the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE) web site provides the up-to-date location and status of UD’s research vessel Hugh R. Sharp.
Map users also can see the ship's course and speed, the status of the mission, and the weather and water conditions at her current location. Users typically will find her somewhere in the coastal waters between Massachusetts and North Carolina, or the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, though projects occasionally require the vessel to work as far north as the Gulf of Maine and as far south as the Bahamas.
The opportunity to follow the R/V Hugh R. Sharp gives anyone with Internet access a view of life aboard one of the most advanced floating coastal research laboratories in the world. The 146-foot ship operates as a member of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS). In addition to UD and Delaware Sea Grant College Program researchers, scientists from all oceanographic disciplines and from throughout the region use the ship for their projects.
One day the ship might take researchers out for a mammal and bird count and the next it might use the university’s autonomous underwater vehicle to study the ocean floor. Check out what she’s up to today!
For more about CEOE, visit www.ceoe.udel.edu.