They were also able to use UD’s coastal research vessel, the R/V Joanne Daiber, to conduct day trip surveys out on the water studying the site. 

Two UD doctoral students who were heavily involved in the mission were Kaitlyn McPherran and Mark Lundine. 

McPherran helped the midshipmen plan and prepare for the mission, and also instructed them on how to use the AUVs. When she was out on the ship, she and Lundine flew drones to record the search proceedings from the air, and she also helped the midshipmen process the sonar and bathymetry data to give them an idea of what they were seeing. 

Lundine was out on the ship for two days doing the exploration and helping with the mission plans for the AUV. Along with operating the drone, Lundine also helped with deploying and recovering the robotic instruments used to map the wreck site. 

He also took the camera images and wrote the code that allowed him to lay out images of the wreck site geographically. 

“The more you get experience using these systems—using all of this technology in our lab, working with all of the data from the different sites—you learn more each time,” said Lundine. “This was such a unique opportunity. The crash was right off the coast of Delaware, and it was so interesting to get this hands-on experience so close to the campus.”

McPherran and Lundine both said that it was great to bring closure to some of the families and positively identify the shipwreck, which will help the Navy put things in motion to help better protect the site.

She added that getting this type of hands-on experience shows the value of UD’s campus in Lewes. 

“Our campus is right next to a lot of our fieldwork sites for our projects and that helps get us out there on the water,” said McPherran. “You can go out for a day and use all kinds of instruments, and it’s a really good opportunity, especially for the undergrads and the interns.” 

Preserving the site

Trembanis said that there had been previous attempts to identify the Nina, but this was the first comprehensive, high-resolution investigation of the site. In addition, divers found the site in the 1970s and have been picking pieces off the ship ever since. To prevent further looting, it was important for the Navy to have independent verification of the site to start the process of having the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) officially identify the Nina in order to classify the site and protect the craft. 

There is also plenty of follow up work to be done but now that the team was able to successfully identify the Nina and the site, they have a snapshot of how the ship looks currently and can use that data to compare with any future work. 

Trembanis said the autonomous systems they used allowed them to map the ship thoroughly and in a short period of time — if they had to use divers to map the wreck, Trembanis said they would probably still be out there working on the site. 

He also credited the interdisciplinary nature of the work.  

“The Navy has thousands of these cases, and we’ve already started talking with NHHC and SEARCH about what might be our next joint investigation,” Trembanis said. “For this project, we garnered some useful information for them, but it also confirmed the value and the strength of these partnerships. It gave our students some exposure to those communities and how the research, technologies and the techniques they’re learning are directly relevant to those groups. It shows that when you have these sorts of public/private industry or military partnerships, you can do some pretty amazing things.”