6/3/2016
We finally installed the Daytona Beach buoy today just off the Sunglow Pier. Enjoy!
6/12/2016
Unfortunately we lost contact with the newly installed buoy. We are not sure what the issue is but we are aware and will be working on it as fast we can. We apologize for any inconvenience and thanks for your patience.
6/17/2016
We have built and tested a new transmitter which we will swap out with the current one during our onsite troubleshooting. We anticipate getting out out to this buoy sometime in the next week or two weather permitting. The current forecast out to 6/21 is not conducive for field operations, however we will closely monitor current conditions to see if the forecast pans out. Again, thanks for your patience.
10/7/2016
The Daytona Beach buoy is down due to Hurricane Matthew. This buoy will be re-deployed when funds become available to build a replacement buoy. Stay tuned for updates.
11/13/2016
The Daytona Beach buoy is back online. We built a new buoy over the last few weeks and re-deployed it on 11/12/2016. First we recovered the remains of the previous buoy which turned out to be everything from the flotation section on down. This confirms that our theory of it's demise was correct, which was that the buoy got struck by surface debris most likely from the Sun Glow Pier that broke away. While it was not a surprise that the wavegage survived it was a huge surprise that the transmitter did. The transmitter housing is made of clear polycarbonate tubing and is waterproof to at least 100 ft but once the buoy broke apart it was no longer protected from the elements and was rolling around on the sea floor with the rest of the remains.
3/30/2017
The Daytona Beach buoy has been down for about a month now. The cable took a hit during a big wave event in December and finally gave way in late February. We were set to replace the cable but then saw the antenna mast had been broken as well requiring us to bring the whole buoy back to the shop for repairs. We are about 2-4 weeks away from replacing the buoy once it has been repaired and we get good weather for re-deployment.
4/2/2017
The Daytona Beach buoy has been temporarily repaired thanks to the efforts of Chris Dembinsky who went out and secured the antenna mast so that it points to the sky instead of in the water. A more permanent repair or replacement will be performed in the next 1-3 weeks. So our initial thought that the cable had been compromised was wrong and it seems it was just the antenna mast all along.
4/26/2017
We are still waiting for a good weather window to get out to this buoy and do a more permanent fix to keep the data flowing more reliably.
9/10/2017
Hurricane Irma took out the Daytona Beach buoy at some point during the storm. This buoy had stopped reporting the previous due to an ongoing issue with it cell phone antenna.
9/17/2017
Recovered the remains of the Daytona Beach buoy today. The buoy washed ashore about 2 miles north of its deployed location. This buoy will be returned to service as soon as we can get to it.
3/16/2018
Well the stars and planets finally all aligned and we got the new Daytona Beach buoy deployed today. We also recovered the remains of the last station and wavegage. The wavegage was out and operating for 489 days and we'll post the data when it is qualified. Viz was about 2ft and water temperature was a very brisk 62F.
4/25/2018
The Daytona Beach buoy has been reporting in sporadically due to a data cable issue. We will have a replacement cable ready and attempt an in-situ repair during the first week of May, weather permitting.
5/15/2018
This buoy is the new design and we have discovered a design issue which we believe has resulted in the cable failure at the connection point to the buoy. The fix will require us to remove the buoy to replace the bottom flange which will have a different connector that will relieve the stress on the cable at the buoy. We have one spare buoy at the moment that we will use to swapping out buoy to reduce down time due to this issue. Please bear with us and thanks for your support.
6/10/2018
We got out to the Daytona Beach station today and swapped out buoys and data cables. The data cable had been ripped out from its connector at the base of the buoy. This is fairly difficult to do so we do not know how it happened. While this was not the failure mode we had anticipated the change to the way the data cable enters the buoy still applies. Either way the station is back on line.
1/29/2019
We lost communication with the wavegage from this station. The buoy is still functioning properly so it appears to be a failed data cable between wavegage and buoy.
5/7/2019
We got out and swapped out the whole wave station. The mooring line and data cable had gotten wrapped around the anchor and subsequently the data cable got severed. We have installed the new version of the mooring line that has an extra float ball to keep the mooring line and data cable from wrapping around the anchor.