The Deployment of HUGO
The Shore Station
On October 12, the HUGO junction box was deployed on Loihi summit and 50 miles of fiber optic cable were laid to link the experiment to the monitoring station on shore. The images below show the preparations for the HUGO installation as well as the actual deployment. Clink on any of the small images to see a large version of that image.
![]() |
|
||
|
Awaiting the ship. After weeks of preparation, the HUGO team watches the ship approach shore. On the walkway are metal pipes that would later house the cable where it comes on shore. | ||
|
The ship arrives at Honu'apo. The HUGO team decorated the pier area with ti leaves (for good luck) and watched the ship move in closer to shore. The R/V Independence has dynamic positioning capability and is capable of moving directly sideways if need be. As a result, the ship was able to come very close to the pier with little danger. | ||
The vault. The rope that was brought to the ship was then connected to the fiber optic cable such that the entire cable could be winched along the sea floor, through the pipes which lie along the pier and finally underground to the underground vault, shown here. | |||
| |||
Victory! After years of designing and building, weeks of final preparations and hours of hauling on the cable, the heavily armored cable is pulled into the vault. From here, the cable was spliced to another optical cable which connects the submarine cable to the shore station. | |||
Another view of the heavily armored cable (the armor is to protect the cable from pounding due to heavy surf in the shallow waters near Honu'apo). Several extra meters were brought on land so that the fiber optic cable could be spliced onto the cable which leads underground from the vault to the data collection vans. |
Return to the HUGO page
Return to the HUGO deployment page
This page created and maintained by Jackie Caplan-Auerbach