SUBSEA SERVICES

Saab put the bite into Bollywood

18 years ago

When the Bollywood movie, Luck, was filmed in South Africa, a Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV was strapped beneath a giant 4.2 metre long latex and polyurethane replica of a tiger shark, then sent to eat luckless victims trying to escape a sinking container. All in the name of nail-biting movie action of course!

For a shark to eat an actor gently, it takes five brushless DC thrusters with velocity feedback for precise and rapid control in all directions. The realistic swimming motion of the shark and its violent attack can be realistically recreated, thanks to skilful and precise fingertip control of the Falcon by the ROV pilots Steve Wilkinson and Nicolas Stroud of Marine Solutions.

Although small and compact, the Falcon is powerful enough to manoeuvre the 400kg model in both swimming pool and the open ocean, the tricky bit being to balance the buoyancy for compensating between sea water and fresh water.

This is not the first time the Falcon and shark have co-starred together. Owned by the South African special effects company CFX, the shark has worked on many projects with the ROV, operated by Cape Town based Marine Solutions, which specialises in the sales, rental, repairs, maintenance and technical support of underwater systems.

The success of the Falcon ROV, is largely due to its compact size, powerful thrusters and ready customization, which means it can undertake many different tasks across a variety of sectors, including oil and gas, defence, marine science, underwater tourism, and now the movies.

Operators send it down tunnels for mapping and inspection, under the Baltic ice for search and rescue, and into the southern sector of the North Sea for diver support. It can collect the most delicate coral samples and archeological specimen or cut through 16mm of high tensile steel wire. It can hold steady in strong cross currents whilst undertaking a variety of task and tooling can quickly be added or changed simply by bolting on an under-slung module.

The finger tip maneuverability of the Seaeye Falcon comes from its five powerful independent magnetically coupled brushless DC thrusters, each with velocity feedback for precise and rapid thrust control. Its distributed intelligence control system also allows up to 128 devices to be connected together on a single RS 485 serial network. This means different equipment can be added easily and changed as needed. Even a rubber shark!