Designed by All Oceans Engineering Ltd, the AC-ROV is the only single case inspection ROV on the market. With a deployment time of less than three minutes by a single operator, the AC-ROV is depth rated to 75m and achieves complete freedom of movement underwater by virtue of four vectored horizontal thrusters and two vertical thrusters.

The Ac-Cess offer was well received on the Seawork pontoon. First in line was Peter King, chief engineer on Jersey Harbour’s Damen Shoalbuster 2609 ‘Duke of Normandy’. Within five minutes of stepping on board, Ac-Cess had the AC-ROV in the water. However, before it could have a look at the Duke of Normandy’s thrusters, another request came from on board Forth Ports’ new Damen Stan Pilot 1505 pilot boat ‘Forth Leopard’ which was moored along the pontoon astern of the Duke of Normandy. The crew thought they had struck something in the water on the way down to Seawork from Leith and wanted to know if they had sustained propeller damage. Ac-Cess undertook a detailed prop inspection was able to ensure the Forth Leopard crew that they had no prop damage.

Attention then turned to the Duke of Normandy’s thrusters and again, everything was OK. However, when examining along the Duke of Normandy’s hull, the AC-ROV detected some quite recent hawser scarring of the hull coating. The surprised operators were able to relate this to a recently completed project and were thus able to consider working methods that would prevent a recurrence.

MJ Information No 22327