The 2010 National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) mooring workshop

The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) has a global operating theater that encompasses marine weather buoys, Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) buoys and Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART®) buoys. NDBC operates and maintains 117 weather buoys, 55 TAO buoys and 38 DART buoys. These systems are deployed into harsh marine environments and are under constant attack from biological, environmental and human forces. NDBC realized that tackling the mooring issues associated with these deep-ocean moored buoy systems was going to be difficult and long term. In dealing with the short-term issues NDBC decided to host a two-day mooring workshop with the intention to improve the operational reliability of their moored systems. In order to better facilitate this mooring workshop, NDBC requested the NDBC Technical Services Contractor (NTSC) to bring together an internal mooring working group to address the mooring issues and problems. This paper presents the NDBC mooring configurations, the mooring working group and their finding, the actual 2010 NDBC mooring workshop and its findings and recommendations, and finally the actions and on-going efforts generated by the mooring workshop.