AN advanced autonomous research vessel, the 72-foot Saildrone Surveyor, has completed a groundbreaking maiden voyage from San Francisco to Hawaii, reports PRNewswire.
The vessel measures 72 feet long and weighs 14 tons, and carries an advanced array of acoustic instruments, normally manned by survey ships.
Although ocean crossings aren't new for autonomous surface vessels, the Saildrone Surveyor is a new, much larger one for deep-ocean mapping.
During the 28-day voyage, the vehicle sailed 2,250 nautical miles and mapped 6,400 square nautical miles of seafloor.
The vessel utilises renewable wind and solar energy for its primary power source and is the only vehicle capable of long-endurance, unscrewed ocean mapping operations.
Its data is valuable at helping issues such as climate change, offshore renewable energy, natural resource management and maritime safety.
'The data quality from the Surveyor is of very high quality, as good as anything we have seen from a ship,' said University of New Hampshire (HNU) Centre for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM) director Larry Mayer.
'Due to the wind-powered nature of the vehicle, it is very quiet, and this enables the very accurate acoustic measurements needed to map to these depths,' said Mr Mayer.
Said Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins: 'Offshore survey can now be accomplished without a large ship and crew; this completely changes operational economics for our customers.'
SeaNews Turkey
The vessel measures 72 feet long and weighs 14 tons, and carries an advanced array of acoustic instruments, normally manned by survey ships.
Although ocean crossings aren't new for autonomous surface vessels, the Saildrone Surveyor is a new, much larger one for deep-ocean mapping.
During the 28-day voyage, the vehicle sailed 2,250 nautical miles and mapped 6,400 square nautical miles of seafloor.
The vessel utilises renewable wind and solar energy for its primary power source and is the only vehicle capable of long-endurance, unscrewed ocean mapping operations.
Its data is valuable at helping issues such as climate change, offshore renewable energy, natural resource management and maritime safety.
'The data quality from the Surveyor is of very high quality, as good as anything we have seen from a ship,' said University of New Hampshire (HNU) Centre for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM) director Larry Mayer.
'Due to the wind-powered nature of the vehicle, it is very quiet, and this enables the very accurate acoustic measurements needed to map to these depths,' said Mr Mayer.
Said Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins: 'Offshore survey can now be accomplished without a large ship and crew; this completely changes operational economics for our customers.'
SeaNews Turkey