Mobilized For High Resolution Bathymetric Surveys

Continuing their program of investment and development Coastline Surveys has successfully completed the first phase of the permanent installation of a full bathymetric survey suite on board their 24m survey vessel, the MV FlatHolm.

The range of high-tech state-of-art survey equipment includes the R2SONIC 2024 High Resolution Wide Band Multibeam Echosounder, an IxBlue Hydrins Inertial Navigation System and an Edge Tech 4200 Dual Frequency sidescan sonar with Discover and SonarWiz software.

Coastline has recognised the ever increasing importance of the role multibeam technology is playing within the offshore construction market and has reacted to meet that demand with the installation of the highly flexible and reliable SONIC2024 multibeam system. The Coastline team had previously deployed the MBES system from MV FlatHolm on a number of projects including a wreck survey in the Southern North Sea where they were able to achieve remarkably high quality results in a very short space of time due to the flexible frequencies which can be changed on the fly during survey operations, in a range of water depths.

Integrating with the SONIC2024, Coastline has also installed the Hydrins high performance Inertial Navigation System, which delivers highly accurate real time positions, attitude and velocity data in a compact single unit. The system is permanently installed close to the approximate centre of gravity of the vessel with motion and heading information fed to the survey room onboard.

The final addition in this first phase of upgrades is the EdgeTech 4200 sidescan sonar system which will be available for rapid deployment from the vessel and can be configured for virtually all survey applications providing high resolution imagery at ranges up to 50% greater than non–CHIRP systems.

The second phase of system upgrades onboard the MV FlatHolm will include the addition of a Geometrics 882 Magnetometer which will be permanently installed on the vessel within a matter of weeks. This will combine to provide a sensor suite that further enhances the versatility of MV FlatHolm and productivity as a geophysical survey platform.

Within days of installation, the new suite of survey equipment was successfully deployed on a major renewable energy project Coastline has been awarded on the South Coast. Having completed a programme of geotechnical sampling and bathymetric survey this contract will shortly move into its third phase and will concentrate on ROV cable burial survey operations from MV FlatHolm in conjunction with Suffolk-based specialists Innovatum Ltd.