Posted on: Sunday, September 16, 2001

'Mystery' ship studies ocean

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser North Shore Bureau

A huge "mystery" ship anchored off La'ie last week had Honolulu resident Carolyn White worried, especially after last Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Calls to the Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, police and some television stations turned up no information, she said the day after the attack.

"It was scary that no one knows anything about it," said White, who had been vacationing in La'ie. "It made us even more nervous after the attacks."

But officials from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California said the ship is a Navy research vessel called FLIP, for Floating Instrument Platform. The vessel is moored six miles off La'ie. It is conducting experiments assessing the effects of ocean conditions on microwave and other signals.

The unusual vessel — it flips to a vertical position to conduct some of its work — is involved in a series of experiments being performed by the University of California at San Diego's Marine Physical Laboratory.

The Rough Evaporation Duct Experiment involves studying the effects of waves, foam and mist in the area near the ocean's surface on the transmission of various radio and light signals. The FLIP is linked electronically to two instrumentation sites on land, two buoys on the ocean and two aircraft.

The experiments started Aug. 24 and are expected to continue through Tuesday.