L3 ASV to Conduct UK Autonomous Navigation Study

L3 ASV has announced that it has received U.K. government funding for a pioneering project on autonomous navigation of maritime vessels. The company will conduct a study with its partners in the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), focusing on the future of marine navigational data and charts. The project is funded by the Department for Transport’s Transport Technology Research Innovation Grant (T-TRIG) and aims to promote early-stage science…

Trump Requests $200.5 Mln for BSEE, $193.4 for BOEM

U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget submitted to Congress on Monday includes $200.5 million for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and $193.4 million for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), up from the respective $199.9 million and $179.3 million requests for FY 2019.The requested BSEE budget includes $129.9 million of appropriated funds and $70.6 million in offsetting collections of revenue from rental receipts…

New Research on Gulf of Mexico Loop Current

More than $10 million in grant funding has been awarded for a group of new projects that aim to fill research gaps in order to help improve understanding and prediction of the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current System (LCS).As the Gulf of Mexico's dominant ocean circulation feature, the LCS has far-reaching implications for a wide range of human and natural systems, including oil and gas operations, yet knowledge…

Alucia2 Installing FarSounder 3D FLS

The FarSounder-1000 Forward Looking Sonar (FLS), has been selected by the OceanX exploration team to help provide safe passage for Alucia2, its new 85.3m research and exploration yacht. Admarel BV, a member of the Alewijnse Group, is the FarSounder dealer in the Netherlands instrumental in securing this sale.With the inclusion of a FarSounder-1000, operators of the vessel will be able to view a true underwater 3D image ahead of the ship up to 1000 meters range.

UKHO Conducts Seabed Mapping in St Lucia

The U.K. Hydrographic Office (UKHO) said it has deployed a motorboat to survey the waters of St Lucia as part of the Commonwealth Marine Economies (CME) Program.Following a stakeholder meeting with the St Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority (SLASPA) and wider government earlier this year, priority areas will be surveyed, capturing sonar data of St Lucia’s main ports and approaches. These include Castries to Marigot Harbor, Rodney Bay, Vieux Fort Bay and Soufriere Bay.

Schmidt Ocean Institute Seeking Communications Interns

Schmidt Ocean Institute is seeking applicants for the 2021 Science Communications Internship.The Science Communications Internship aims to provide educational and practical support to graduate students studying marine science, communications, journalism or a related field. Interns will work with Schmidt Ocean Institute’s communications team supporting outreach programs, with the goal of engaging, influencing…

U.S. Revives Cold War Submarine Spy Program to Counter China

On a windswept island 50 miles north of Seattle sits a U.S. Navy monitoring station. For years, it was kept busy tracking whale movements and measuring rising sea temperatures. Last October, the Navy gave the unit a new name that better reflects its current mission: Theater Undersea Surveillance Command.The renaming of the spy station at the Whidbey Island naval base is a nod to a much larger U.S.

NOAA’s PORTS® System Expands Operations to Include Pearl Harbor-Honolulu

NOAA’s first Physical Oceanographic Real-time System, or PORTS®, at Pearl Harbor-Honolulu, Hawaii, is now operational. Installed by NOAA's National Ocean Service, data from the new publicly available observation system advances NOAA’s ability to better serve Hawaii’s coastal communities and secure maritime safety in the Pacific Islands.Pearl Harbor-Honolulu PORTS is NOAA’s 40th system in this national network of precision marine navigation sensors concentrated in busy U.S.

NOAA & US Power Squadrons Sign Agreement

NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey & US Power Squadrons sign a Memorandum of Agreement to improve cooperative charting program. Rear Adm. Gerd Glang, director of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, recently sat down with John Alter, chief commander of the U.S. Power Squadrons (USPS) to sign up to a collaboration that began fifty years ago. The USPS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to safe boating through instruction in seamanship, navigation, and related subjects.

Keppel Earn Bonuses For Early Rig Completions

Keppel FELS complete two rigs early for Transocean and Asia Offshore Drilling, earning a combined US$1.5-milliion bonus. Over two consecutive days Keppel FELS held naming ceremonies for twin jackup rigs built for Transocean, and another jackup rig built for Asia Offshore Drilling (AOD), which is majority owned and managed by Seadrill Limited. Transocean named twin Super B Class Bigfoot jackup rigs…

NOAA Offers a New Way to See Currents

A new NOAA National Ocean Service website will provide mariners near real-time coastal ocean surface current observations and tidal current predictions in coastal waters using high frequency (HF) radar, making marine navigation safer for mariners and commercial shippers. The web-based observations are now available for the Chesapeake and San Francisco Bays in areas vital for marine navigation, with additional locations to follow.

Kraken Wins Government Funding to Support Development of Acoustic Velocity Sensor

Kraken Sonar Systems signed a Contribution Agreement with the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP). The funding will be applied to the development of AquaTrak - a new Correlation Velocity Log (CVL) designed for underwater navigation. AquaTrak will be used to measure the speed over ground of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) and can also be used for high resolution current profiling.

OSIL Buoy to Monitor Hong Kong's Largest Reservoir

The largest reservoir in Hong Kong's water supply will be monitored by a buoy from UK-based Ocean Scientific International Ltd. (OSIL), the company announced today. Euro Tech (Far East) Ltd. has purchased a specialized 1.2 meter Shearwater buoy from OSIL for installation in Hong Kong's High Island reservoir. The buoy will measure DO, pH, turbidity and chlorophyll in the reservoir, which holds 281,124,000 cubic meters, the largest capacity of Hong Kong's 16 reservoirs.

Norway's Scana Energy Call on Consultants

Scana Industries ASA engage consultants to evaluate strategies for Scana Energy's further growth and international development. Scana Industries ASA has engaged Bridgehead AS and its Swedish partner Avantus Corporate Finance AB, to assist in assessing various strategies for the business unit Scana Energy's further growth and international development. Scana Energy, is the Scana Group's largest business area with a turnover from 800 million to 1500 million SEK in recent years.

Canada's Halifax-Class Frigates Get a Sonar Upgrade

Nautel, together with General Dynamics, will upgrade and maintain underwater sensors on the Halifax-class frigates for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) as part of the Underwater Warfare Suite Upgrade (UWSU) contract awarded to General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada.The upgraded sensors will offer the RCN an improved ability to detect and track underwater threats utilizing advanced Sonar amplifiers and…

RRS Sir David Attenborough Launched

The hull of the U.K.’s new polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough was launched from Cammell Laird shipyard Saturday, marking a major milestone toward the completion of one of the world’s most advanced scientific maritime vessels.Shipyard workers, engineers, scientists and maritime industry experts were among thousands who gathered to celebrate the launch along with special guest speakers, including renowned naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough…

Ashtead Delivers Installation Monitoring Services to Subsea 7

Subsea equipment specialist Ashtead Technology said it has completed a subsea installation monitoring project for Subsea 7 in support of Equinor’s Utgard development, located in blocks 15/8 (NCS) and 16/18a (UKCS) of the central North Sea.The contract, which was awarded by i-Tech Services on behalf of Subsea 7, saw Ashtead’s Deflection Monitoring System (DMS) used to capture critical data required…

MacArtney Expands Into Italian Market

MacArtney Underwater Technology is ready to launch its newest operation, MacArtney Italy, supporting local Italian customers with the global MacArtney brand.A long-standing cornerstone of the MacArtney strategy is to continually strengthen global reach and customer support through a strategic local presence in key markets. With a renewed focus on expanding their global footprint, MacArtney Underwater…

Kongsberg Fishery Simulator for Greenland

Nine commercial fishery companies have donated in total $471,587 to Danish training institute, the Greenland Maritime Center, for investment in a state-of-the-art K-Sim Fishery simulator from Kongsberg Digital.A first of its kind in the Kingdom of Denmark, the K-Sim Fishery simulator will enable students to gain vital competence in diverse fishery situations, including aft deck operations, and is scheduled for installation in 2020.Introduced by Kongsberg Digital in 2018…

MTR100: #4 Martin McDonald , SVP, Oceaneering

Martin McDonald , SVP, Oceaneering ... Directing the world’s largest fleet of work class ROVs.The editors of Marine Technology Reporter are pleased to share that Martin McDonald, Oceaneering, is #4 in the 14th Annual "MTR100". The full  electronic edition of Marine Technology Reporter is available at https://magazines.marinelink.com/nwm/MarineTechnology/201907/. Oceaneering is a pioneer and leader in the world of subsea robotics…