The 65.5m vessel will be twice the length of the Institute's existing research vessel, Celtic Voyager. Utilising all the latest electronics and scientific equipment, it will be one of only three vessels in Europe to meet the noise requirements enabling it to be classified as 'silent' in fish survey terms.

The Celtic Explorer is designed to carry a crew of 31 people, including 19 scientists, for voyages lasting up to 45 days.

Using the new vessel, the entire Irish continental shelf and beyond will be accessible to Irish scientists.

The vessel will be equipped with a Kongsberg Simrad EM1002 multibeam echosounder of 95kHz, which is designed for high-resolution seabed mapping. It will operate from the shoreline to depths of 1,000m with an accuracy surpassing IHO standard. Other Kongsberg Simrad equipment on board will include Neptune bathymetric data post-processing software with Cfloor, an EA 600 singlebeam echosounder, EN 250 navigation echosounder, SJS autopilot with manual joystick, SPS 2000 Survey Planning Station, a Kongsberg Seatex Seapath 200 integrated heading, position and attitude sensor and an acoustic doppler current profiler.

Provision has been made in the hull for Kongsberg Simrad's EM300 deep water multibeam echosounder system and Topas 018 deep water sub-bottom profiler.

MJ Information No: 16736