The float was launched in a triad with NPS#6 and NPS#13 about 100 km southwest of San Francisco (Figure 2). The floats in the triad were launched in a nearly equilateral triangular pattern with a side of about 8 km.

The float moved westward almost immediately after launch, never encountering the undercurrent Figure 1. On November 23, 1993 the float was entrained by an anticyclonic eddy (Figure 4) with diameter of 40 km and period of 12 days

Number of loops 8
Diameter, km 39.9
Duration, days 99
Period, days 12
Swirl velocity, cm/s 11.7
Translation velocity, cm/s 1.7
Direction, degrees 255
Rossby number 0.07

and remained there till the end of the mission.

The triad illustrated either one eddy splitting or two eddies colliding. Although all three floats began in the same eddy, near the end of the float missions, NPS#11 appeared to enter an adjacent eddy while the other two remained ( NPS#6 , NPS#13 ) in the original feature. (Garfield et al., 2001)

The float was ballasted for 350 dbar and its real depth was between 300 and 340 dbar. (Figure 3).