Li Ling – Jan 18:
RAN reparation today!
After the test mission last Saturday, Anders and Mark noticed that the downward looking multibeam on RAN was… Hmm… Not entirely attached to RAN… Lucky that they caught the issue! If we would have deployed without checking carefully, the multibeam will probably not be working and could, in the worst case… fall off into the ocean 
Doing the actual inspection and reparation was actually quite an operation for everyone onboard. Normally, RAN sits in her LARS (Launch And Recovery System) up-right, and we can’t access the downward looking multibeam… Anna and Mark and Anders tried covering the entire LARS in grease the other day, hoping that the grease will lubricate the LARS enough so that we could roll RAN around. Unfortunately, a 2 ton vehicle was not easily rolled… So, in order to access the multibeam, we had to lift RAN from the container to the heli deck (2 floors up) with a crane.
Luckily, the actual reparation turned out to be quite easy, it seemed like only two M6 bolts were missing. Getting RAN in and out of the container, however, was quite a bit of work with many people involved!
Up on the heli deck (From left to right: Mike (MT), Philip, Ken (MT))
Fastening RAN on the heli-deck (From left to right: Philip, Lars, Mark,
Mike (MT), Anders)
After the reparation, RAN was craned from the heli-deck down into the ocean, and then a normal recovery procedure was performed to get her back into the container.
Craning RAN from the heli-deck (From left to right: Philip, Lars, Mike
(MT))
Releasing RAN from the crane in the ocean (From left to right: Mike
(MT), Andy (ET))
Poor Sam (seaman) sat in the crane for over two hours during the entire
reparation…
All the pictures above didn’t even catch all the people that were involved! All I can say is thank you to everyone that helped to make the operation possible!