Field measurements axe important for understanding coastal processes, verifying and calibrating numerical and physical models, and as direct input to coastal designs. Many aspects of coastal engineering are hampered by the lack of high quality field data particularly during storms. This paper introduces the Sensor Insertion System (SIS), which uses a somewhat different approach for measurements that has proven useful at the US Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility (FRF). The SIS is a pier-mounted diver-less instrument deployment and retrieval system that can be used to make measurements under calm or storm conditions anywhere across the surf zone. The SIS can operate in wave heights up to 5.6 m, with 20 m/s winds, and 2 m/s currents. The mobility of the SIS permits measurements to evolve with the morphology, thus avoiding many of the problems of traditional stationary instrument installations. The SIS approach is to use a single instrument array and reduce the cost and logistics of instrumenting the surf zone so that a long-term measurement capability can be maintained. This approach has helped overcome many of the obstacles of directly measuring storm longshore sediment transport processes at the FRF during the past six years. The utility of the SIS is demonstrated in this paper through examples of it's application for a variety of coastal science investigations.