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Licences for MCA
The Maritime & Coastguard Agency , the UKs national maritime administration responsible for promoting standards of safety at sea and protection of the marine environment, has acquired a series of licences for HIPS/SIPS, GIS and HOM from Canadian survey software specialists, CARIS .
It will be the fifth such event to be held outside the UK following earlier stagings in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and most recently, Kiel. The choice of Ireland, says The Society, is particularly timely as the national Geological Survey Division is currently engaged in mapping an offshore area ten times larger than the country itself.
One of the MCA’s lesser known activities is to fund, via the Department of Transport, a Civil Hydrography Programme aimed at ensuring UK waters are surveyed to the highest standards in support of navigation. Delivery of the programme decrees a combination of public and private sector involvement using Royal Navy hydrographic resources and chartered commercial survey companies. The MCA itself is not directly involved in work although it says that all civil hydrographic programme surveys commissioned by the organisation from next year onwards will be carried out with multibeam echosounding systems.
