When the buoy was first located, the Delaware II crew was not able to inspect it because of weather conditions. When the weather improved, divers found 100 ft of heavy anchor chain dangling beneath the buoy. The chain was hoisted aboard the Delaware II and cut. NOAA Photo courtesy R/V Delaware II

The Delaware II captured the NOMAD buoy in the Gulf Stream 145 miles southeast of Nantucket, and towed it back to Woods Hole in 24 hours. NOAA Photo courtesy R/V Delaware II

The Woods Hole-based NOAA Ship Delaware II hooked an unusual catch last week. The Delaware II crew captured and towed home a 30-foot long, 12,000 pound aptly-named NOMAD buoy worth more than a quarter-million dollars.

The Delaware II was nearing the end of a hydroacoustic cruise April 26, when she received a call from NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

“It’s unfortunate, but occasionally these things do come off their moorings,” said Shannon McArthur, an NDBC operations manager in Mississippi. The NDBC keeps track of NOAA ships and aircraft, and calls on them to ask for help when a buoy goes missing.

The NOMAD buoy slipped its mooring April 22 and for four days sailed eastward in the Gulf Stream. By the time the Delaware II tracked down the wayward NOMAD, the buoy had traveled 80 miles from its assigned station east of Cape May, New Jersey.

The search for, and rescue of, the buoy were a first for LCDR Richard Wingrove, commanding officer of the Delaware II. “We’re a fishing boat,” the captain said. “We’ve never brought a buoy in before.”

Finding the peripatetic buoy was not a trivial task. “It took 18 hours to get to the last location fix,” said navigator Francisco Fuenmayor, “and then another three hours to find where it had gone since the last fix.”

When the crew sighted the runaway NOMAD, Wingrove sent out a small rescue boat with two crew members to attach a towline. With a tether in place, the Delaware II was able to bring the buoy back to port – a 180-mile trip that ended when a crew from the Woods Hole Coast Guard station took possession of the NOMAD just off Juniper Point.

The NOMAD buoy is part of an array of automated weather buoys that gather data useful for weather forecasting, including wind speed and direction, wave height, pressure changes, and other key data about marine conditions and developing storms along the coast. The center operates other buoy systems, including a tsunami detection and warning system.

The NOMAD buoy rounded up by the Delaware II normally is moored in 10,000 feet of water, at station 44004. Neither the buoy center nor Wingrove know how it shook its mooring, although the captain said it somehow sustained damaged to its solar panels. McArthur said NDBC buoys break off their mooring for a variety of reasons, including weather, vandalism, mechanical failure, fish bites, and ship collisions.

Older buoys that are recovered are sometimes sent back to the NDBC for upgrading and refitting. Newer buoys are simply returned to their post, usually by the Coast Guard.

Posted May 5, 2006