NAS, BOEM Committee Meeting to Set Research Priorities

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) will hold the third meeting of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Standing Committee on Offshore Science and Assessment on July 11 and 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C. The agenda will cover strategic research priorities from the BOEM regional perspective and how they fit into BOEM’s mission and goals; defining metrics for meeting strategic priorities and research goals…

CMS-Geotech Launches Vibrocore Monitoring Acquisition System

Vibrocoring is an established fundamental phase of marine seabed investigations, but its importance is often underestimated and much vibrocoring is carried out somewhat blindly, ie lowering the unit to the seabed, vibrating for a set time and recovering to the surface in the hope that an adequate sample has been obtained. CMS-Geotech is a U.K. specialist in vibrocoring and CPT site investigation and over the last 12 months has developed a new monitoring system…

OceanServer Wins US Navy Subsea Deal

OceanServer Technology, Inc. has recently been awarded a contract for one Iver3 AUV by the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, RI. This system will include several Iver3 options just released including the Rowe Technologies, Inc. (RTI) SeaPILOT 600 kHz Doppler Velocity Log with ADCP. The RTI’s SeaPILOT family of Doppler Velocity Logs (DVLs) represents some of the industry’s acoustic Doppler technology.

Two Offshore Industry Contracts for Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce will supply Petrobras with advanced maintenance and repair services to support fifteen Rolls-Royce RB211-G62 industrial gas turbine power generation units which are installed on four Petrobras oil platforms operating in the petroleum rich, pre-salt Campos Basin. The four Petrobras platforms, which together can produce over 500,000 barrels of oil per day, or 25 per cent of Brazil's entire output…

Security Check List for Internet Access at Sea

An increase in internet access at sea will lead to an increased risk of suffering a cyber-attack, says a research report by Protection Vessels International. However, if addressed correctly, this risk can be lowered to sit comfortably within the acceptable risk tolerance levels of an organisation. Britain is a maritime nation. We depend on the sea to trade with others. Over 90% of the world’s trade goes by sea – this figure is 95% for the United Kingdom.

Rovco Joins NVIDIA Inception Program

UK-based subsea company Rovco has announced plans to take artificial intelligence (AI) to new depths after being selected to join the NVIDIA Inception Program. Designed to nurture start-ups that are revolutionizing industries with advances in AI and data science, the virtual incubator program supports members overcome critical stages of product development, prototyping, and deployment. Being selected by NVIDIA will see Rovco benefit from hardware grants…

Research Vessels: The Fleet is In

A wave of new and innovative research vessels are set to help scientists enhance their understanding of the oceans. MTR profiles several of these ships currently in designe and construction across the globe. The U.K.’s new polar research ship rose to fame when Boaty McBoatface took the internet by storm as the leading vote getter in an online naming contest. The U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) eventually chose to call the ship RRS Sir David Attenborough…

Schlumberger Launches Industry-first GoM Survey

Schlumberger expanded its Gulf of Mexico multiclient wide-azimuth seismic data portfolio by launching a new survey in the Campeche Basin. The acquisition of the industry’s first multiclient wide-azimuth survey offshore Mexico will cover 80,000 sq km using two fleets of WesternGeco vessels, including Amazon Class, the world’s first purpose-designed 3D seismic vessels. “Building on our experience in the U.S.

Twenty Teams Vie for Wave Energy Prize

Qualified teams to continue pursuit to win U.S. Twenty teams have successfully navigated the first technology gate of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wave Energy Prize to become official qualified teams. The 20 qualified teams, selected from the field of 92 official registered teams announced on July 6, will continue their quest to double the energy captured from ocean waves and win a prize purse totaling more than $2 million.

IMCA Publishes Peripheral Survey Sensors Guidelines

The newly published "Guidelines for the management of peripheral survey sensors" (IMCA S 021) has been developed under the direction of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) Offshore Survey Division management committee. Since the 1970s technology has been developed and applied in the offshore surveying industry to provide better and improved accuracy, quality, reliability and resolution of data and results.

New NOAA Chart Adds to Arctic Shipping Safety

NOAA formally presented today to Alaska officials a new nautical chart for Kotzebue Sound in the Alaskan Arctic, a sparsely charted region that is seeing increased vessel traffic because of the significant loss of summer sea ice. The new chart depicts the full range of depth measurements and object detection acquired during a full ocean bottom survey last summer by the NOAA hydrographic survey ship Fairweather.

MTR100: QPS-US (Quality Positioning Services)

No. QPS are specialists in software solutions for marine spatial data. Software products for efficient data collection, advanced post processing and 4D visualization include QINSy, Qimera and Fledermaus. QINSy is a software suite used for various types of maritime geomatic surveys, ranging from simple single beam surveys up to the very complex offshore construction works.

Boskalis Expanding Subsea

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) is set to expand its market position in the area of subsea services, according to its Corporate Business Plan 2017-2019. "In a persistently challenging market there tend to be interesting opportunities for anti-cyclical investments in companies or equipment that will result in Boskalis being well-positioned when end-markets recover again," it says. In mid-August Boskalis acquired subsea survey specialist Gardline…

Film Examines Cutthroat World of Shrimp Trade

A second documentary film, “Raising Shrimp,” from executive producer Ted Caplow at Fish Navy Films and featuring aquatic ecologist Andy Danylchuk of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been named an official selection of the Blue Ocean Film Festival this year, where it will be screened on Thursday, Nov. 6 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Their first film, “Fish Meat,” won an honorable mention at Blue Ocean in 2012 in Monterey, Calif.

SMD Tests Subsea Mining Vehicle Prototype

A new robotic underwater mining vehicle prototype has completed first stage testing in a project set to uncover valuable European underwater mineral resources. U.K.-based subsea engineering specialist Soil Machine Dynamics Ltd (SMD) is technical lead on the VAMOS (viable alternative mine operating system) project, a 42-month international research and development venture, which is part-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

New Research Ship Sally Ride Sails for Home

On August 26, 2016, R/V Sally Ride will arrive from its shipyard birthplace in Anacortes, Wash., via a stop in San Francisco, to its home port at the Scripps Nimitz Marine Facility in Point Loma. The ship is owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego—one of the world’s most renowned ocean, atmosphere, and earth system research centers. R/V Sally Ride…

SEA Installs New Tech for Biscay Marine Energy Park

Cohort plc subsidiary SEA has utilized its advanced power connection technology to install a 13.2kV cable connection in support of the Oceantec wave energy device located at the Biscay Marine Energy Park (Bimep) test site in Northern Spain. Bimep tests prototype devices for generating wave energy in advance of commercial production to ensure economic and technological readiness and that they are reliable and safe for commercial deployment.

MTR100: Engineered Syntactic Systems

Engineered Syntactic Systems (ESS) is exclusively focused on the formulation, engineering and manufacturing of superior quality syntactic foam, a class of material created using pre-formed hollow spheres (commonly made of glass, ceramic, polymer or even metal) bound together with a polymer. Thanks to its unique properties of high strength at low density, syntactic foam is widely used in subsea buoyancy applications.

Project Launched to Better Detect Ocean Ice Hazards

There is an increasing need for fine scale detection and characterization of hazardous ice conditions in the Arctic. ASL Environmental Sciences Inc. has recently received funding from the Canadian Space Agency to address this need under the Earth Observation Applications Development Program. The project will develop improved techniques, tools and data products that will enhance the detection and characterization of hazardous ice conditions at fine scales…

Wärtsilä Introduces its Smart Marine Ecosystem Vision

The smart technology group Wärtsilä is at the forefront of harnessing the changes taking place in the shipping industry to deliver value and optimisation for its customers. By orchestrating these developments through the use of high levels of connectivity and digitalisation, Wärtsilä intends to lead the industry’s transformation towards a Smart Marine Ecosystem. “The world is moving towards a future that is more and more connected, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the shipping sector.