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ShowBoats International has been involved with and instrumental in supporting the SeaKeepers
Society since its inception in 1998. Our annual ShowBoats International Awards
and Monaco Rendezvous are coupled with the Bal de la Mer SeaKeepers Society
fundraiser. John Englander, the society’s CEO, explains SeaKeepers, its
mission and its equipment.
This organization is both simple and revolutionary. From a
shared love of the sea, a group of yacht owners and entrepreneurs determined
that it would be invaluable to have a monitoring device that could gather
quality data from the world’s oceans.
 Triton. (Click image to enlarge)
While oceanographic research ships have been collecting data
for more than 150 years, scientists are limited by the surprising scarcity of
accurate, current data about ocean water quality. Oceans are critically
important to the planet and all its inhabitants. The oceans are changing
dramatically, and these changes will have an extraordinary impact on billions of
people around the world.
Just as economists use models to predict global economic
change, scientists are modeling the oceans and atmosphere to better understand
and predict the scope and consequences of environmental change. Research and
technology offer the possibility of a more precise understanding, yet there
is a lack of sufficient data to drive the models. With its powerful, flexible
and cost-effective technology, SeaKeepers has already made substantial
contributions to the challenges posed by ongoing oceanographical and
climatological change.
 SeaShaw. (Click image to enlarge)
Registered as a not-for-profit organization in the United
States and in Monaco, the International SeaKeepers Society has more than 75
founding members, each of whom has contributed a minimum of $50,000 to finance
the research and development of the SeaKeeper 1000 (SK1000) monitoring system.
Now patented, the system has been deployed in approximately 50 locations,
including private yachts, cruise ships, transpacific freighters, passenger/car
ferries in the Mediterranean, NOAA sea buoys, private submarines, remotely
operated vehicles (ROVs), coastal piers, lighthouses and U.S. Coast Guard
icebreakers.
These diverse installations prove the utility and flexibility
of this system. It is suitable for a private yacht, a scientific facility or a
pier-based coastal monitoring network. The heart of the SK1000 is a cabinet
with slots for various suites of sensors. Seawater is continuously pumped
through the sensors, with samples typically taken every minute. The
scientifically precise data is recorded on computer memory, and every three
hours a snapshot of the detailed data is sent via satellite to the SeaKeepers
data server.
 One of the system’s most important attributes is that depending
on the monitoring needs in a particular environment, new sensors can be added as
technology becomes available. More than half a dozen sensor manufacturers in
various countries are designing and adapting ocean measurement devices to fit
the SK1000’s architecture. Standardization and modularity offer huge benefits in
terms of data diversity and cost efficiency compared to previous scientific
instrumentation. (Click image to enlarge)
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