Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: ROV Holland 1

The Marine Institute is working closely with the Coast Guard, the Air Accident Investigation Unit, Commissioners of Irish Lights, Geological Survey Ireland, P&O Maritime Services, the Navy, An Garda Síochána, and local skippers.

The Marine Institute's ROV Holland 1 remotely operated vehicle was deployed from the Commissioners of Irish Lights vessel, the ILV Granuaile. The ROV has high definition cameras, powerful lighting, robotic arms, and has been fitted with other specialist equipment to assist with the operation. It was fitted with a 'ROV homer' provided by the National Oceanographic Centre Southampton, capable of receiving signals from a black box. During a dive on Wednesday 22nd March, the ROV located rescue helicopter R116 on the sea bed on the Eastern side of Black Rock, at a depth of approx. 40m. The ROV acquired extensive video footage of R116 until poor weather conditions required the ROV to halt operations.

Experienced surveyors from the national seabed mapping programme, INFOMAR – a joint Marine Institute, Geological Survey initiative - continue to assist with the operation. The INFOMAR team identified target points for investigation and created 3D and 2D images of the seabed in the search area to help direct the ROV and assist with planning and safety of diver operations.

The Marine Institute will continue to cooperate with the Air Accident Investigation Unit, the Coast Guard, An Garda Síochána, and local persons and agencies to recover the missing crew members.

Published in Marine Science

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.