Exploring the Gulf Stream

On July 14, 1969, two days before the launch of Helios 11, most people flocked to Cape Kennedy to see the final preparations for the first landing on the moon.

　　And Palm Beach, Florida, 208 kilometers away, is about to hold another historic launch, but among the excited crowd, only a few people actually know about it.

　　The ship that was launched was the Franklin experimental ship designed by Jacquis Bigal. Like Helios 11, it was a voyage full of crisis. The experimental ship is full of various scientific instruments for navigation.

　　The new marine survey vessel is preparing to explore beneath the powerful Gulf Stream.

　　The Gulf Stream is the second largest current in the world (after the Antarctic countercurrent), about 80 kilometers wide and 3,000 feet deep. This warm current, which runs from the Gulf Stream through the Atlantic Ocean to the northeastern coast of Europe, has intrigued many sailors and scientists for centuries.

　　However, it is still nearly 200 years since humans have actually made progress in studying the origin and dynamics of ocean currents!

　　In 1913, the Spanish explorer Pensey de Leon sailed south from the southeastern coast of the Florida Peninsula. Suddenly, the three ships that were originally downwind could not move forward. He wrote this strange event in his diary: "We originally planned to sail south, but the ship could not move forward... Although it was sailing smoothly, the ship was gradually pushed back. The current seems to be stronger than the wind, and the two ships closer to the coast, although they threw their anchors in the sea, the iron chain was broken by the strong current!"

　　In the two centuries since Pensey de Leon sailed, many sailors and explorers got lost or had to sail along the Gulf Stream due to encounters with the Gulf Stream, so there have been many speculations and fabricated stories about the Gulf Stream.

　　It was not until 1770 that the first chart with a transatlantic route was completed for the first time. When Boston Customs protested the delay of the British mail ship, Bostonians wondered why it took two weeks for mail to cross the Atlantic from the Old World to the New World? And it was always slower than American ships on other routes? Franklin, then the postal agent president, invited Timothy Voluga, captain of the Nanducket whaling ship, to discuss the matter.

　　Voluga believes that British captains did not know enough about the Gulf Stream. Voluga said: "We are very familiar with the Gulf Stream. Because whales often come and go on both sides of the Gulf Stream, they cannot be seen in the Gulf Stream. Therefore, when catching whales, we must sail along both sides of the Gulf Stream. Sometimes in order to hunt down whales, we have to cross the Gulf Stream to the other side... During the crossing, sometimes we encounter ships that are retrograde in the Gulf Stream. I told them not to sail against the Gulf Stream with a flow rate of 4,800 meters per hour. It is better to sail beyond the Gulf Stream, but they ignored it."

　　Captain Voluga also drew the route of the Gulf Stream on the Atlantic chart, which Fu sent to England. However, British captains did not agree with the value of the chart and Voluga's advice. For the next 120 years, oceanographers also occasionally sailed into the Gulf Stream to explore the secrets of this warm current. Using thermometers that can be placed in the water and bottles, they collect temperature and density data at various depths. And put a mark on the bottle and throw it into the sea, and these bottles are often picked up in unexpected places, thus discovering new vortices and tributaries of the Gulf Stream.

　　Based on these and other data, scientists have concluded that the Gulf Stream is formed by bays and winds.

　　Trade winds cause a westward current in the equatorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean, which passes through the narrow Yucatan Strait into the Gulf of Mexico, where it continues to strengthen before flowing out to sea through the Florida Strait.

　　Since 1903, when the Ushor Oceanographic Institute was established in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, people have been more actively studying the wonderful Gulf Stream. To investigate the waters of the Gulf Stream, scientists purchased a small sailboat with two masts, the 460-ton Atlantis, with various modern scientific equipment, capable of carrying 25 people. Beginning the following year, the tranquil Atlantis sailed more than 800,000 kilometers at sea along the Gulf Stream for several consecutive years.

　　In many studies, scientists at the Usher Institution of Oceanography, using special instruments, collected a lot of data on the amount of water in the Gulf Stream, and finally they came to the conclusion that the source area of the Gulf Stream flows 30 million cubic meters per second, but when it flows from southern New England to the Atlantic Ocean, it flows as much as 150 million cubic meters per second.

　　(The mouth of the Mississippi, the largest river in the United States, discharges only 1 percent of its water).

　　As a result of this measurement, the flow of the Gulf Stream is really amazing. Where this water comes from is still unknown.

　　The above is the information about the Gulf Stream before the Franklin sailed from Palm Beach on June 14, 1969. The Franklin is a mid-level submarine built to explore the 2,000-foot-deep ocean. The hull is 15 meters long. It is not only loaded with the daily necessities of the six crew members, but also full of scientific instruments and sailing equipment.

　　USS Franklin was designed by Jacquis Bigal in 1965 for a program to study the Gulf Stream; for this program, Klama Aviation provided a lot of funding, and the U.S. Department of the Navy's Oceanographic Service not only provided support at sea, but also Two oceanographers were dispatched to assist in the design of the ship's approximately 1-ton scientific instruments; NASA also dispatched observers for this program to investigate the crew's response during the 1-month voyage, and Bigal and The crew were divided into 3 groups to experiment.

　　The crew of the mid-level submarine searches the waters of the Gulf Stream for plankton and minerals for the Kramer Company. Experiments by the Admiralty Oceanic Service include a wide range of issues such as seawater velocity, available light, gravity, the natural sounds of the ocean, the structure of the seafloor, and the regularity of life. NASA focuses on how crew members respond to prolonged confinement and loneliness - conditions that are also required on the space station. Its experimental method is: record the conversation of the crew while eating, ask each crew to keep a diary, and use 3 cameras installed in the ship to take a photo of the crew's actions every 2 minutes.

　　During the 30-day and 11-hour voyage, the crew of the Franklin experienced extremely exciting times. They were forced into tension and cramped spaces, but until the project was completed, they set many glorious records.

　　The Franklin sailed 1,444 nautical miles (2,600 kilometers) along the Gulf Stream to 575 kilometers south of the Nova Scotia Strait in the North Atlantic, where she drifted at an average depth of 650 feet. It has also sailed 10 times between 1200 and 1800 feet, five of which were actual surveys of the seabed; the crew measured the speed of sound, salinity, and water temperature more than 900,000 times on this voyage.

　　NASA also spends a lot of time poring over photos of the crew at work each day.

　　Surprisingly, when the occupants looked out of the observation window, they found very few fish and plankton in the Gulf Stream. When surveying the Gulf Stream using sound frequencies this time, they did not detect the "deep-sea bulk milk layer" (the deep-sea bulk milk layer refers to the plankton layer. When using sound to detect the ocean, the sound often encounters this bulk milk layer and turns back without actually reaching the bottom of the sea).

　　This bio-dense layer is generally between 600 feet and 2,400 feet, and is usually 150 feet to 600 feet thick. However, for living things, the Gulf Stream is nothing more than a desolate barren land!