Update: the survey has been rescheduled for 4 November-8 December 2022 and Marine Notice No 69 of 2022 withdrawn.
Following this past week’s deployment of metocean instrumentation, the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) intends to undertake a geotechnical site investigation campaign on the proposed offshore wind farm area off the coast of north Co Dublin, Meath and Louth.
This campaign will involve the deployment of seabed borehole drilling and cone penetration test (CPT) equipment for continuous sampling and is expected to be completed between next Monday 17 October and Sunday 20 November, subject to weather and operational constraints.
It will be confined to the proposed NISA area, which forms an irregular shape spanning 32km north-south and 14km east-west at its widest point. At its closest location, near Rush in Co Dublin, the survey site is 7.4km from the coastline.
The survey will be conducted on a 24-hour basis by the Fugro Synergy survey vessel (callsign C6XR3).
As this vessel will be restricted in its ability to manoeuvre when surveying, due to the deployment of the seabed sampling equipment for the duration of the survey activities, other vessels are kindly requested to keep a wide berth.
An onboard fisheries liaison officer will be available to discuss operations throughout the duration of the survey campaign.
The vessel will display appropriate lights and signals. Mariners are also advised to keep continuous watch on VHF Channel 16 when navigating the area.
Coordinates and a map of the survey area as well as contact details can be found in Marine Notice No 69 of 2022, attached below.