The Department of Transport has been advised that the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) intends to undertake a geophysical survey campaign on the proposed offshore wind farm’s cable corridor area off the coast of counties Dublin, Meath and Louth.
This campaign will start on Wednesday 22 November and will continue for a period of two weeks, subject to weather and operational constraints.
It will be undertaken by SEP Hydrographic and will involve the deployment of a hull-mounted (multibeam echo sounder and high-frequency sub-bottom profiler) and towed geophysical sensors (side-scan sonar, magnetometer and medium-frequency sub-bottom profiler) within the nearshore part of the cable corridor area.
Survey work will be confined to nearshore area of the proposed cable corridor area, a total area of approximately 2.5 sq km. The survey area extends to landfall near Bremore. All operations will be within the 12-nautical-mile limit.
The survey will be conducted by the survey Vessel Ros Áine (callsign EIZG5) on a 12-hour (daylight operation) basis. As the survey vessel will be restricted in its ability to manoeuvre when surveying, due to the deployment of the towed survey sampling equipment for the duration of the survey activities, other vessels are kindly requested to keep a wide berth. The Ros Áine will display appropriate lights and signals.
Coordinates and a map of the survey area as well as contact details can be found in Marine Notice No 74 of 2023, attached below.