Phoenix and the Remora 6000

New Wave Media

June 16, 2013

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  • Remora launch recovery
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  • Remora Winch ARES Deck View
  • PII man at Winch Control
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  • Remora Winch ARES Deck View Remora Winch ARES Deck View
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The Remora is specially designed ultra-deepwater ROV.  It was designed and built to explore and undertake specialized work at the seabed up to four miles deep. The builder of the Remora 6000, Phoenix International, is an American marine services company experienced in designing and manufacturing unmanned subsea vehicle and also in conducting complex manned and unmanned underwater operations. Phoenix is also a highly regarded operator, when it comes to wet and dry chamber underwater welding, underwater non-destructive testing, manned diving, side-scan sonar operations, underwater tooling, submarine rescue, and engineering design and integration.

Phoenix has had an extensive history in performing deep water search and recoveries for the commercial airline industry before it was selected to participate in this final phase of the search for the black boxes and flight recorders of Air France flight 447.

It is no small challenge as it involves not only finding and retrieving the stated items, but also recovering fuselage parts and eventually rigging the portions of fuselage that contains some of the corpses of the airliners passengers and crew, to be lifted to the surface, no small feat, and something that has probably never been done at such extreme depth. 

Past recovery projects have included Yemenia Flight IY626, which was also conducted for BEA, (the French version of the FAA), Adam Air Flight 574 and Tuninter Airline Flight 1153.  The company also provides search and recovery expertise to companies all over the world, the U.S. Navy, national and international agencies, and foreign governments. Phoenix is, very significantly, in its eleventh year as prime contractor to the U.S. Navy for undersea search and recovery operations, which is very impressive indeed, if we take into consideration the high standards demanded by the U.S. Navy.

The company is at the forefront of the U.S Navy´s modern submarine rescue system, which consists of a tethered, mobile, pressurized rescue module approach called the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System (SRDRS).  Phoenix was the company selected to maintain the complex and mission critical, sub-systems comprising SRDRS, always at a constant state of mission readiness.

It is an incredible ROV, one of very few with capabilities to do extensive work at a depth of 6000 meters (nearly 19 685 feet). In order to get an idea of the magnitude of this capability, we may consider that the deepest place in the world´s oceans is the Mariana Trench. It is currently estimated to be up to 10,971 m (35,994 ft) deep. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands.

 

Claudio Paschoa

 

Remora 6000 ROV Specs:

General

Weight in Air 900 kgs dry

Weight in Water Neutral

Dimensions Length: 1.7 m

Width: 1.0 m

Height: 1.2 m

Maximum Operating Depth 6,000 m

Vehicle Description

Propulsion 25 hp electro-hydraulic

Thrusters 4 x Axial / lateral thrusters

2 x Vertical thrusters

Manipulators 2 x Hydro-Lek six function, rate controlled

Fiber Optic Multiplexer 1 x Prizm Video 3

Cameras 1 x Simrad 1367 color CCD video camera with

remote zoom & focus

1 x Simrad 1324 ultra low light SIT camera

Lighting 4 x ROS 250 watt lights (variable-intensity)

Pan and Tilt unit

Sensors 1 x Simrad 900D scanning sonar

1 x Laser Gyro

1 x Simrad altimeter - 0-300 m

1 x Depth sensor – 0-10,000 psi pressure transducer (+/- 0.5%)

Options 1 x 35mm still camera

2 x HMI lights

1 x Stand alone fiber optic “Mini Mux” for added data or six camera capacity video

1 x Laser ranging system

Remora 6000 Ancillary Equipment

Integrated Winch and A-frame System with 6,700 m of Rochester Fiber Optic

Umbilical – Three (3) Single Mode Optical Fibers and Three (3) Power Conductors

Focal Slip Ring

Full Complement of Salvage Equipment

Heavy lift system and Motion Compensation System

Control and Work / Spares Vans

 

Source: Phoenix International Holdings Inc.

 

 

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Paschoa, Claudio
Claudio Paschoa is Marine Technology Reporter's correspondent in Brazil.
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