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Part III. Appendix 4: User OutreachCommunity IssuesMARINE OPERATIONSTeam Members: Mark Luther, Phil BogdenIntroductionOne goal of the Integrated Ocean Observing System is to improve the safety and efficiency ofmarine operations. The composition of this community of consumers includes users involved innear-shore port operations, as well as mariners operating in open-ocean conditions near the coast.Harbor pilots who are responsible for maneuvering large ships and tankers in dangerous watershave been especially strong supporters of widely available real-time observations. Their needs aremirrored by other users operating at sea, such as commercial fishermen, recreational boaters, commercialshippers, the U.S. Coast Guard, and others. These groups are interested in forecasts, butthey are much more interested in immediate access to buoy data. They seem less trusting and consequentlyless interested in model forecasts. The Coast Guard is apparently a big user of the realtimedata for planning their own sea-going activities, as demonstrated by web-site hits, but we donot believe they are using information about real-time ocean currents (either from models or fromHF radar) for Search and Rescue.IssuesPort OperationsUsers: Harbor Pilots, Ship Masters, Port Authorities, Shipping Agents, Shipping Companies, ShipYards, Tow boat operators, Dredging contractors, USCG Marine Safety Office1. Timing of slack water for safe maneuvering of ships in harbors—Many vesselmaneuvers cannot be made except near slack water (currents less than 0.1 m/s or 0.2 kts.).Having real-time current measurements available to users (primarily pilots and masters), ratherthan relying on tidal predictions, widens slack water window in which maneuvers can be madesafely. In the United States the vanguard program for delivering real-time oceanographic datato mariners is the Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS), which dates to 1991.PORTS is a public information acquisition and dissemination technology developed by theNational Ocean Service (NOS) in cooperation with the Greater Tampa Bay Marine AdvisoryCouncil. In Tampa Bay, the pilots state that having real-time current information available fromPORTS aboard ship widens the slack water window from 1-2 hours to 3-4 hours for approachesinto Port Manatee and Old Port Tampa, both of which have channel entry paths that perpendicularto the main tidal flow.227