Hello All...

I'm finally back from my trip to the mid-atlantic ridge. Everything went well and there was lots of work to be done 2 miles straight down ;-) I hope everyone has had a great autumn. Before I left, I brought my Rodriquez to the frame builder to respace the rear end to 120mm and to add a small 'track' to the underside of the left chainstay. A small 'tab' will slide along the track and will act as an anchor for a variety of coaster brake arms....very discreet. I hope to pick up the frame in the next day or two. I'll post some photos when I get it together.

Not that it's related to singlespeed/fixed, but here's a pic of yours truly picking up a rock with one of Jason's arms. Oh yeah, Jason has no derailleur.....yeah that works ;-)

Enjoying the home life....

Jim

dude...thats awesome.

is jason controled from a submersable or from a boat on the surface?

Yes home is a great place to be! Welcome back to terra firma and your trusty bike. Sounds like a very cool trip! The MAR is a fascinating place (never been but I'm a fellow ocean nerd). Are you with UW or NOAA?

Thanks....After all these years, it's still fun. Jason is operated from a ship. It's technically a portable system (although it takes 5 tractor-trailer trucks to move it) so we operate off of a lot of different ships. This trip was on the R/V Knorr.

Jim

I'm a contract pilot so I work for myself (pay is better ;-) I used to pilot other ROV's but for the past 12 years I've mainly piloted Jason. We do alot of work on UW's R/V Thompson which is arguably the best ship in the UNOLS fleet. Jason will be in Seattle (on the Thompson) in early September. If you'd like a tour let me know. Do you go to UW?

Take care...

Jim

Working for yourself - excellent choice! No politics involved. What an exciting way to spend your time. Thanks for the tour offer. I'm stuck in the catacombs of Sandpoint mapping critters and spill response. Luckily I'm not in Dutch Harbor right now!

oh god I am slow...I didnt get your last sentence and the pic looked like
some posts with broken bike chains to me with a fridge in the background
but now I got it !! cool thing!

Ha Ha.. No worries. It's not really obvious what's going on in the photo and I probably shouldn't have posted it anyway. But for those interested, the white box is a sample box that usually 'lives' inside of Jason's frame. There is one on each side and they are swung out for sampling and then returned to their stowed position when done. The junk at the bottom of the picture is instruments for sampling of hydrothermal vent fluid (hot hot minerals and water).

Jim

is that the same jason that was used to explore the titanic?

Hi legalize_it...

This Jason is from the same 'pedigree' but is the 3rd generation in that line. The Titanic ROV was small and deployed from the submersible Alvin. It weighed a few hundred pounds. This one weighs in at 8000 lbs. The 2 hydraulic arms are capable of breaking most rocks and can carry 250 lbs of payload. It is rated to work at 6500 meters depth. There is a good summary of Jason at: Jason photo and summary

Take care...

Jim