UK’s MCA extends MMT Contract – by David Goodfellow
The UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency, which is responsible for managing Britain’s civil hydrography programme for systematic surveying of domestic waters, has extended its contract with MMT AB of Gothenburg for a further three years.
The Swedish company has been carrying out survey operations under the auspices of the MCA for the last four years and will now continue until 2012 with routine seabed mapping and monitoring depth changes for updating of the UK Hydrographic Office’s charts and publications.
MMT’s 7m survey vessel, Ping, is currently working in the Shetlands area and was due to be joined in May by SeaBeam, a 16m nearshore and offshore workboat with a service speed of 14 knots and equipment including a Kongsberg EM3002D multibeam sounder.
Based at Gothenburg’s port entrance, MMT has recently been involved in classifying a well preserved 17th century Dutch wreck lying at a depth of 130m north of Gotland, in the Baltic. This entails extensive deployment of ROVs and multibeam sounding along with recovery of an historic wooden statue. The archaeological venture is being filmed for National Geographic and other TV networks.
