Okeanus Science & Technology, LLC (Okeanus), an established provider of marine equipment and engineering services, recently revealed how some of the company’s deck-handling equipment proved instrumental to the discovery of the iconic US Revenue Cutter Bear. The shipwreck was located during a 2019 geophysical reconnaissance mission off Nova Scotia carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Coast Guard (USCG), and CSA Ocean Sciences (CSA).
The expedition was supported by an Okeanus DT-210EHLWR slip ring winch, from Okeanus’ DT Marine 200 Series, a model specifically designed for short-tow side scan systems, well logging services, towed arrays, and deploying scientific instrumentation for oceanographic surveys. The 10-horsepower self-contained hydraulic winch was used to tow a Klein 3900 high-resolution dual-frequency sonar system via an armored coaxial towcable, covering more than 62 square nautical miles of the seabed over the 14-day survey.
The data identified two key targets, one of which—located approximately 260 miles due east of Boston and 90 miles south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia—was confirmed to be the USRC Bear in October after a team of marine archeologists returned to the site to gather conclusive evidence using a ROV equipped with high-resolution underwater cameras.
Close up of Bear mooring to a pier showing her hull and sail rig. (Image courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard)
"We were thrilled to support NOAA, USCG, and CSA on this historic mission to pinpoint the USRC Bear, and so the recent news that the site identified in the 2019 campaign is indeed the famous shipwreck is a source of much excitement among the team,” said Okeanus Chief Commercial Officer Benton LeBlanc. “Okeanus winches are ideal for search and recovery efforts of this nature as they are easy to mobilize, can operate from any marine platform, and are reliable to perform—as was the case with this campaign—in particularly challenging at-sea conditions."
Okeanus offers a comprehensive range of all-electric and electro-hydraulic multi-purpose winches suitable for vessels of any size and configuration, as well as a growing catalog of highly specialized winches, which includes spooling winches, underwater winches, mine countermeasure winches, umbilical winches, ASV mounted winches, and cold climate winches.
