Safe surveying
Survey ships and many marine construction vessels are often required to go into areas of shallow water where the chart may not always show reliable information. The margins for safe navigation can be quite small in these circumstances partly because there is little incentive to survey areas that ships do not normally visit.
Now a New Zealand company has come up with a solution that can allows ships to navigate in uncharted waters with a higher degree of confidence.
WASSP has based its new system on a technique that was developed in the early days of exploration when there were no charts at all in newly discovered regions of the World. The technique was to send a small boat ahead to sound out where the deep water was and find any hidden dangers. The new system developed by WASSP applies modern technology to this technique so that a tender goes ahead but instead of returning to the ship and passing the information on verbally it is transmitted back to the ship via a Wi-Fi link.
In the WASSP system the tender is fitted with a sophisticated multi-beam sounder system that can generate a 3-D picture of the sea bottom below. With a multi-beam sounder this picture can cover a significant area around the tender and show up shoals and rocks and other hazards. This picture can then be sent back to the mother ship in real time and it can then be displayed on a MaxSea electronic chart display.
The position of the tender is fixed with a GPS receiver and this location information allows the sounder display to be shown in its precise location on the electronic chart in good time for the mother ship to assess any hazards and to take appropriate manoeuvring action. It can provide an undersea picture of what lies ahead and provide the reassuring confirmation or otherwise about the information shown on the chart display.
The WASSP system is being introduced into Europe in conjunction with Furuno Deutschland and whilst originally developed for use by exploring super yachts it is likely to have a significant application in the workboat and marine construction sectors. Wassp Ltd is a major developer of advanced multi-beam sonar equipment and Furuno has taken a significant investment in the company.
By Dag Pike
