Abyssal Watch — Passive Array 4

Sonar Scope

Live bearing plot for the Kerrow Trench listening station. Beam period 8 s, true north up, contacts held for three consecutive returns.

Contact Log

9 held · watch 02 · 04:17 UTC

K-114 · Charted traffic

Trawler “Gannet Roe”

Steady screw signature, six blades, cavitating lightly on the up-swell. Matches the Peterhead registry return logged three watches ago. No manoeuvre since acquisition.

Selected contact telemetry
ParameterValueTrendConfidence

Watch Log — 02

  1. Array warmed, hydrophones 1–48 nominal

    Element 33 still showing 4 dB of self-noise on the low band; compensation curve applied at the beamformer rather than the pre-amp. Flagged for the maintenance boat on Thursday.

  2. X-902 acquired at 118°, six kilometres

    Broadband hiss with no tonal ladder. Classified unresolved for two returns, then flagged when the bearing rate went flat — a flat bearing rate at that range means it is closing on us bow-on.

  3. Biologic chorus on the southern spokes

    Seasonal fin whale calls between 190° and 215°, twenty-hertz pulses at roughly ten-second spacing. Masked U-013 for most of the watch; the operator switched to the narrowband waterfall to hold it.

  4. Handover brief prepared for watch 03

    Two flagged tracks, two unresolved, five charted. Recommend keeping the beam period at eight seconds until the trench current slackens near dawn.