It is this apparatus which will provide an unprecedented level of detail to help marine scientists understand how UK coastal seas works. One of the buoys will be in an area closer inshore where the effects of estuarine waters will be seen. The other is to be further out and in very different conditions. 

PML team leader Dr Tim Smyth said, 'Up to now we have relied on data collected once a week at best, from a boat visiting the two sites. Now we can get data as it happens, so we can look at the small scale changes and see how they in turn affect the longer term.'  

The decision to mount the equipment on these particular buoys was based on the features specific to Hippo's elastomer design. The hull of the elastomer buoys is made out of the same material as the company's fendering products used on applications such as high speed military patrol craft where both protection and weight are an issue.  

The buoys are designed to compress and absorb impact energy, to bounce and recover their shape protecting the instruments within rather than cracking or denting on impact. The buoys are designed to be manufactured from the inside out, forming the inner shape and then coating it rather than manufacturing a shell out of a plastic material and injecting foam inside it.  

This design  makes for a buoy that can be customised to shape, a point in Hippo Marine's favour when it came to a contract calling for scientific equipment fitting snugly inside the unit.