Seafloor Site Characterization for a Remote Island OWC Device Near King Island, Tasmania, Australia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Seafloor site characterization for an offshore OWC
device near King Island, Tasmania, Australia
Remo Cossu, Craig Heatherington , Irene Penesis , Ryan Beecroft and Scott Hunter
This manuscript is concerned with geotechnical investigations of the sea bed in a location to be used for the deployment of a gravity based wave energy converter.
This paper appears to me to fall between several stools. It reads to me like a consultancy report and is not clear to me what is scientifically new about the work. The overall purpose of the work, from the point of view of a scientific journal is unclear. There is no discussion of the foundation requirements for the WEC, nothing on the consequences of the survey for project design, nothing that emphasises any uniqueness of the survey design or of the equipment used.
Some of these questions are flagged, for example line 69 links geotechnicals with device design but the topic is not taken forward.
The penetrometer seems to be a key instrument, and perhaps the manuscript could be taken in the direction of a thorough assessment of its performance, but this is not done.
The WEC is stated (line 232) to be placed on the surface, and yet there is no assessment of the potential for destabilisation or other failure from scour (line 323-235). Monitoring after installation is not a good strategy if the first storm undermines the device!
Some additional smaller points:
Title: I would not consider this to be an offshore location. It is about as close inshore as it could be without being onshore.
Line 77: Check language
Line 128: Check language
Line 152 and others: Please be consistent as to whether there is a space between values and units
Fig 3 legend: Remove full stop
Line 175 Do you mean homogeneous?
Line 243-244: Is such additional information necessary? How could it be obtained? How would it be used?
Line 266 My version reads “order of O(106) Pa,” Is the value correct?
Lines 326-334 This seems weak from a science point of view. This manuscript does not add to the knowledge of structure-seabed interactions
Author contributions: Some initials in here do not appear in the author listor acknowledgments.
Author Response
We thank reviewer 1 for the thorough review and have addressed all of comments in the attached pdf.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Although I am not an expect in the field tackled by this manuscript, it was interesting, relatively well written and easy to follow and understand. However, the text needs some careful revising and editing to:
- follow the journal guidelines on unit format (space?),
- properly use “e.g.” (= “for example”) and “i.e.” (= “in other words”),
- explain each and every acronym the first time they are used (out of the abstract),
- refer properly to the figures (where is Figure 1e?),
- be consistent in date formats,
- make sure all the references at the end have a date (e.g. 17, 27, 28).
Other comments in order of apparition in the manuscript:
- Figure 1: Have the legend actually describe a, b, c and d individually; provide names on geographic features / islands; add compass to 1d.
- L111: “Representative core samples were shipped for the geotechnical analysis.” Where at? Who did what?
- L127-129: This sentence seems to be missing the end.
- L156-168: This is actually part of the Methods, only the last 2 sentences are actual results.
- Figure 4: There are two legends for 4a; and what is the x-axis on 4b?
- L197: “but 3, 4 profiles show peaks…” replace by “but profiles for drop 1 and drop 13 show peaks …”
- Figure 5: add drop numbers to the map so we can relate figs 5b and 5c to 5a; where the drops for b & c truly selected randomly?
- L258: Imagery of the seafloor is not presented in Methods nor Results, please add those to the study or don’t mention them at all.
- L266: What does “O(106) Pa” mean?
Author Response
We thank reviewer 2 for his/her thorough review and have addressed all of comments in the attached pdf.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have provided satisfactory explanations and edits. Happy to accept.
