Day 4 in Thonon

In the morning Jean-Christophe & I ran some errands. We took the platform to a machinist who cut it down in size and drilled holes so we could bolt on the 5 transducers. We then stopped at a local marine store where we bought a surge protector with 4 outlets to run the electronics safely on the boat and some eye bolts so we can attach safety lines to the platform. There they had a plastic seagull for sale. Can you guess what it is for?

Apparently real seagulls are adverse to this color for reasons I do not understand. So the plastic gull keeps real gulls from making a mess on a boat.  Does it work? Maybe so.

Our last stop was a hardware store because we needed 30 bolts, 30 nuts, & 60 lock washers. In the US we count out bolts & tell the clerk the number and the unit price. The hardware guy today weighed 10 bolts, entered ten into his electronic scale, and as he added more the scale automatically kept the running count. The guy stopped adding bolts at 30. He repeated the same steps for the nuts & lock washers. The guy had a great time explaining his scale to his American customer.

Jean-Christophe went and got the platform from the machinest. Later we bolted on the transducers and the corner safety eye bolts. I add this photo as evidence of our hard work. We think we are ready for sea trials tomorrow if the weather allows. We keep our fingers crossed for good luck.

Towards the end of the day JC, Jean & I met to discuss the sampling plan, order of events, gear and materials. Planning field work takes time because it is important that people understand the plan so things will go smoothly. I will share our design in a later post.