Saildrone, a US specialist in real-time maritime intelligence through small uncrewed systems, has unveiled the latest addition to its fleet.
With a keel and bulb fabricated out of one piece of aluminium – which Saildrone believes to be the largest single chunk of the metal cut in the world – the Surveyor-class unmanned surface vehicle SD-3000 Surveyor is 20 metres in length, a reduction of two metres from the previous version,Voyager.
“Minimising metal on metal in salt water is more fail safe,” said Brian Connon, VP of Ocean Mapping for Saildrone and a former captain in the US Navy. “We are very excited about it – we took what we learned from the prototype, optimised the hull, shortened it and went with a yacht designer to streamline it through the water.
”It is 25% faster, and we have upgraded the survey equipment which has increased the amount of the ocean bed that we can map at any one time.”
Connon believes that recent reluctance shown by developers for offshore wind – manifested by firms like Vattenfall and Orsted delayingprojects or cancelling them altogether – was in a way a necessary reset.
”I think it’s a positive thing because it’s causing a reset,” he said. ”We now have a better understanding of what it’s going to take to deliver and developers are taking more time.”
Saildrone, whose three main markets are offshore wind, defence and ocean sciences, is also part of the Seabed 2030 project, which is aiming to map the entire ocean bed by 2030.
Connon believes a quarter of this has now been achieved, and one of the most surprising finds made by Saildrone has been a 1,000m sea mound off California (see graphic), which no one knew existed.
“It’s about putting more eyes and ears in the ocean,” Connon said. ”All of our vehicles use wind power with electric thrusters as well as a Yanmar diesel engine. The key thing is being able to charge the batteries on it – that’s why they can stay on the ocean for up to two years.”
In fact it is the marine growth that necessitates bringing the vessels back, he said.
Saildrone currently has 100 Explorer hulls in its fleet, with 50 of them at sea at any one time. There aer 30 Voyager hulls, with 15 deployed, and the latest Surveyor is undergoing sea trials.
