Field evaluation of the Meteorological and Oceanographic Articulating Platform

The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) recently developed and designed a Meteorological and Oceanographic Articulating Platform (MOAP) to collect meteorological and oceanographic data in the coastal environment. The platform design and features were presented at the MTS Ocean Community Conference '98 (Kohler and Teng, 1998). A field evaluation was conducted on the MOAP to evaluate its performance and determine its suitability as an NDBC coastal data collection platform. This paper presents the results of analysis and evaluation of the MOAP performance under normal operating and extreme conditions. Some visual observations and experience encountered during the deployment and field evaluation are also discussed.