S/V Windom logs: Identify this mystery trash object!

Monday, May 02, 2005

Identify this mystery trash object!

Windward-side beaches are always strewn with trash: shoes (mostly flip-flops), plastic and glass bottles, toothbrushes, combs, plastic hard-hats, cracked buckets, crates, and so on. And these. Can anyone please tell us what this is? It's about 3-4 feet long, plastic, hexagonal, is threaded at one end, is usually gray or black, and we've seen them on every windward beach in the Bahamas. Any clues?

- posted by S/V Windom @ 5/02/2005 [link]

Comments:

Perhaps it's the remnants of Darth Vader's lightsaber?

:)

[link] posted by FireWolf : 7:59 PM

It is the transportation container for an air launched sonobouy. US Navy P-3 and Helo aircraft launch sonobouys which float with a hydrophone suspended below and a radio for transmitting what they hear up to the aircraft. After a while the bouy sinks. The plastic container is used to protect the sonobouy during transportation and storage.
It probably came from the Andros test range. Cheers, Roger A. Arrowood, Capt USN (ret)

[link] posted by Anonymous : 8:11 AM

It is a sonobuoy shipping container commonly referred to as a "Gray Overpack." These used to be used to transport Navy sonouboys many years ago. They have not been used fo U.S. Navy sonobuoys since the mid 90's or earlier. Foreign Navies still buy some sonobuoys inside gray overpacks (Germany for example). US Navy overpacks would have a lot of painted annotation on them concerning th esonobuoy. G. Wolf, AWCM (Ret) USN

[link] posted by Anonymous : 11:02 PM