We named the PacX Wave Gliders in honor of four individuals who have made important and significant contributions to oceanography and increased our understanding of one of our most valuable assets.
San Francisco to Japan
Jacques Piccard (July 28, 1922 – November 1, 2008) was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He was one of the first people, along with Lt. Don Walsh of the United States Navy, to have explored the deepest part of the world’s ocean, and the deepest location on the surface of the Earth’s crust, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench located in the western North Pacific Ocean.
San Francisco to Japan
Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806 – February 1, 1873), of the United States Navy was an American astronomer, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author, geologist, and educator. He was nicknamed “Pathfinder of the Seas,” “Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology” and later, “Scientist of the Seas,” due to the publication of his extensive works. In particular, his book Physical Geography of the Sea (1855) was the first extensive and comprehensive book on oceanography to be published. Maury made many important new contributions to charting winds and ocean currents, including ocean lanes for passing ships at sea.
San Francisco to Australia
Dr. Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. In addition to his writings, his inventions and experiments with electricity, Franklin was an early oceanographer. As Deputy Postmaster, Franklin became interested in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns. In 1768, while in England, the Colonial Board of Customs asked Franklin why it would take British mail ships several weeks longer to reach New York than it took an average merchant ship to reach Newport, Rhode Island despite having a more complex voyage departing from London. Turning to his cousin, Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaler captain, Franklin learned merchant ships avoided a strong eastbound mid-ocean current while the mail packet captains sailed into it, thus fighting an adverse current of 3 miles per hour (5km/h). Franklin worked with Folger and other experienced ship captains, to chart the current and name it the Gulf Stream, by which it is still known today.
San Francisco to Australia
Pius “Mau” Piailug (1932 – July 12, 2010) was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for deep-sea voyaging. In the hope that the navigational tradition would be preserved for future generations, Mau shared his knowledge with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). With Mau’s help, PVS used experimental archaeology to recreate and test lost Hawaiian navigational techniques on the Hōkūle‘a, a modern reconstruction of a double hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe. We pay respect to the tradition of deep-sea voyaging and to our company’s origins in Hawaii.
