WALLINGFORD, Conn. – July 11, 2006 – VBrick Systems, Inc. (www.VBrick.com), an industry leader in affordable video over IP network solutions, today announced that it is helping to provide live streaming video that will enable global audiences to explore two schooners sunk off the Massachusetts coast 103 years ago.  Scientists and archaeologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Undersea Research Center at the University of Connecticut (NURC-UConn) will lead the exploration via a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) controlled from a ship above the wreck site in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. 

Researchers will provide live, 30-minute presentations on Saturday, July 15, 2006 at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. EDT.  The streamed presentations will be available online at http://www.nurc.uconn.edu and at the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center in Massachusetts.  VBrick enables presenters to blend real-time audio/video from the ocean floor with live, synchronized PowerPoint slides that provide the audience with added content and insight into underwater exploration.  This feature allows the researchers to incorporate previous research images of the wreck to provide historical context and compare the condition of the wreck from last year.

The wooden schooners – Frank A. Palmer and Louise B. Crary – sank after their 1902 collision in Massachusetts Bay.  Today the ships sit upright on the sanctuary seafloor, still joined at the bow.  NOAA and NURC-UConn scientists have visited the wrecks annually since 2003 with an ROV to monitor, study, and document their condition.  The National Park Service added the shipwreck site to the National Register of Historic Places in April 2006. 

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