After 15 years, Parker Maritime\u2019s nearshore mapping vessel was coming to the end of its service life. Rather than adapting another cabin cruiser, the company realised that there were advantages to a customised build.<\/p>\n
Parker was already interested in DutchWorkboats\u2019 small survey vessel designs as DWB has a knack for producing a very light, trailerable aluminium boats: the 7.50 for example only weights 2.7 tonnes. But Parker needed something a little different to deal with the coastal waters around Norway and its customers: it wanted to be able to take clients out onsite, getting immediate feedback. Further, the boat also had to be transportable, coming in at under 4m high (with its antennae lying flat) including the bed of the crane truck which hoists it in and out of the water, \u201ca deployment method we\u2019ve been using since 2001\u201d said Rolf Arne Ueland of Parker Maritime: “It’s proven to be very effective”. <\/p>\n
This places certain demands on the design: \u201cIt has to be compact while also providing a comfortable office on water – and it has to be quick at its job,\u201d said Rob Voskuil. Firstly, the original 7.50 hull, which is something between a semi-planing and fully planing form \u201cgave it a very dry ride and stability when sailing slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n
And like the 7.50, the 8.5m version has large trim plates which makes it possible to level the boat \u201cwhen it\u2019s \u2018riding the hump\u2019 of the bow wave\u201d he said. \u201cThis means you can carry out surveys while at mid-range, semi-planing speeds; depending on your equipment, you can double most normal survey rates making it very efficient at covering large stretches of water\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still, there are important differences between the 7.50 and 8.50: Norwegian survey vessels face potentially lengthy transits around the coast between the launch point and the work site; moreover Parker Maritime wanted the boat to be able to handle longer duty cycles. <\/p>\n
Taken together this meant that while the 7.50 design had a Volvo Penta D3 engine and the associated DPS system, the 8.50 saw this replaced by a D4, 225 horsepower model and DPH Duoprop sterndrive. While both the DPS and DPH are pretty robust and the counter rotating propellers \u201cgive good directional stability without pulling to one side,\u201d he added the DPH unit \u201cis more of a work drive\u201d able to handle higher torque. This gives White Beauty a transit speed of around 22 kn.<\/p>\n
At the front there is also a bow thruster said Mr Voskuil: \u201cThis isn\u2019t really needed for general manoeuvring, the sterndrives are flexible enough for that, but it\u2019s very useful to have a thruster for handling the sharp turns that come with surveying a quay wall or inside a marina.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Ueland explained the new 2.9m beam survey craft has two separate moonpools behind the cabin, \u201ca little bigger than on the original 7.50\u201d he said. As the length was extended by a metre in all, this gave a 6m2, open rear deck which also helped fulfil Parker\u2019s desire for enough flexibility to expand services in the future with a small A-frame and ROV, plus of course, it allows plenty of room for the very capable Kongsberg EM2040 multibeam echosounder. <\/p>\n
Like the 7.50, the hull is shaped to allow for a clean water flow across the sensors. However, Mr Ueland added that rather than having two sets of transducer survey heads positioned at different angles, Parker Maritime has developed a housing that can switch the heads between a flat 6\u00b0 attitude for normal operation and a tilted position of 30\u00b0 which gives swath coverage to 90\u00b0 from nadir for coastline surveys, saving space and investment costs. Further, these survey heads have been flexibly mounted, retracting into the hull in order to keep safely out of the way during transport \u2013 an option for both the 7.50 and 8.50 designs \u201cas the survey equipment can often cost more than the boat\u201d added Mr Voskuil.<\/p>\n
There has been some clever work with electrical loads: besides a starter battery the boat has a separate, utility battery of 260Ah that feeds a Victron inverter, yielding 3,000VA at 220V AC. This gives a nice, even power source, very useful for the precise Seapath 330RTK, GNSS positioning and attitude sensor along with the other survey equipment. It also gives operations another layer of reliability: \u201cWe can run the instruments for an hour or two from the batteries alone\u201d, explained Mr Ueland \u201cso effectively it gives us an uninterruptable power supply\u201d. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the cold weather to think about: \u201cIn Norway you need good heating in the cabin spaces but it\u2019s also necessary around the engine \u2013 so the boat has a dedicated diesel heater built into the engine housing. This will automatically switch on if the temperature dips beneath a certain level and so even if there are freezing conditions overnight, everything will still work as it should in the morning,\u201d said Mr Voskuil. Further, although the standard hull is a 5mm aluminium plate, the boat\u2019s hull needed to be increased to 6mm in order to cope with the occasional piece of floating ice. <\/p>\n
However, he admitted the real challenge lay in the cabin arrangement: \u201cThese boats need relatively large and comfortable office working areas, with surveyors normally situated along the port side with room for multi-beams or single beam scanners built into the aft superstructure,\u201d he explained. However, Parker had a lot of experience with its previous boat and had some clear, somewhat individual ideas about what was needed, including the ability to take its clients out on surveys.<\/p>\n
This limited the space and layout: with the passenger\u2019s seats toward the rear of the cabin, the surveyor\u2019s working area, along with its Hatteland Display monitors, were pushed up beside the pilot, both benefitting from Cleemann suspension seats. Added to this there\u2019s a small wash basin, freshwater tank, and small fridge, so fitting it all together took effort, and needless to say, a lot of communication between DWB and Parker in order to give the cabin no less than four, distinct workspaces. Mr Voskuil concluded: \u201cOur slogan is, \u2018tell us what you need and will tell you what we know\u2019…\u201d <\/p>\n
The new boat is an investment, certainly \u2013 but even given tough market conditions, it\u2019s one that Parker Maritime believes will pay off.<\/p>\n
By Stevie Knight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Norway\u2019s long coastlines present a few challenges to small survey vessel designs explains Rob Voskuil of DutchWorkboats. It\u2019s not just the long, cold transits, there\u2019s also a lot of seabed to cover during surveys, preferably at a brisk pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shipyard-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3069"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}