Talisker (Seaglider 156) Mission 001: Rockall Trough 12 October 2009 to 09 March 2010. A winter survey of the Ellett Line

Talisker (SAMS Seaglider 156) was deployed west of Tiree on 12 October 2009, to undertake SAMS exploratory mission to monitor the Ellett Line in the North Atlantic using a glider rather than a ship. She was equipped with a Seabird CTD and Oxygen sensor as well as a Wetlabs fluorometer with red and blue backscatter sensors. Before recovery on 9 March 2010 she had made 789 dives, completed four crossings of the Rockall Trough and covered over 3000 km. Although the end of the mission was forced by a failure of the roll motor, by then all objectives had been completed and the glider was about to return home. The mission has thus been judged a success, and marks the start of remote monitoring of the North Atlantic by SAMS.
A complete summary of the mission data can be found at http://dalriada.sams.ac.uk/glider/