Preface The expedition ARK XIX/3 with the German icebreaking RV ...

Most frequent wind direction was south and southwest, strong winds occurred in less than
5 per cent of the time. Due to the predominating southerly winds the visibility was often
poor. Fog (visibility less than 1 km) was observed or measured in 25 per cent of time. The
fog frequency corresponds to climatological values, the most frequent wind direction does
it not. Normally there should be more northerly winds.
A. 3 The Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) "Victor 6000"
Christophe, A., Triger, P., Opderbecke, J.
During the expedition the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) "Victor 6000" was used at all
sites of scientific interest. This ROV, depth rated for 6000 m, is equipped with various
instruments to be used for scientific operations in the deep sea such as two manipulator
arms, seven digital cameras, water sampler, slurp gun and temperature sensors. The
design of the ROV follows a modular concept based on two sub-systems: (i) the vehicle
itself including servicing equipment (propulsion, video survey, lighting, remote control,
navigation and miscellaneous services), (ii) the scientific module composed of a 0.7 m 3
structure placed under the vehicle in which the majority of scientific equipment, specific to
the mission, is located. The "Basic Sampling Toolsled” was used during the expedition
containing all necessary tools to collect samples (sediment, water, organisms, rocks, etc).
Additionally, instruments and sensors placed elsewhere in the vehicle were also used,
e.g. temperature sensor, slurp gun, release of passive markers etc. A schematic
illustration of the system is given in Fig. A3-1.
Compared to the first expedition with "Victor 6000" to the Arctic in 1999 onboard the
German RV "Polarstern" (Krause 1999; Soltwedel et al. 2000) some improvements
concerning the following technical aspects were made. The navigation system was further
improved by adding accurate position reckoning sensors optic fibre gyro and Doppler
log. The performance of the position reckoning sensors (drift