A Towed Instrument Vehicle for Deep Ocean Sampling

A vehicle that can take instrumentation into the ocean while being towed by a surface craft has been built. The vehicle body is a flooded, 8-foot- long cylinder stabilized at the tail and depressed by a short wing. Most of the structural loads are borne by four full-length radius plates. These plates divide the cylindrical body lengthwise into four wet compartments that have quadrant cross sections. Each quadrant can hold instrument payloads as large as 5-12-in. in diameter. Each quadrant can be uncovered independently to service the payload. These features are improvements over previous designs for carrying an assortment of payloads. Construction cost was only 3200. Design criteria, details of the construction, and results of an initial tow test of the towed body are presented.