The Department of Transport has been advised by the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) offshore wind farm that they will undertake geophysical surveys in the Irish Sea off the coast of counties Dublin, Meath and Louth to facilitate the development of the NISA project.
The survey campaign will involve the deployment of hull-mounted and towed geophysical sensors as well as a multi-streamer 3D seismic array from a survey vessel within the bounds of the proposed NISA OWF.
This survey work is anticipated to run from Sunday 1 September to the end of October, subject to weather and operational constraints.
The survey campaign will be confined to the proposed NISA OWF array site area, which forms an irregular shape spanning 16.6km north-south and 9.8km east-west at its widest point. At its closest location, near Rush in Co Dublin, the survey site is 79km from the coastline.
The surveys will be conducted by the survey vessel Ramform Vanguard (callsign LANM8). The survey will utilise both hull-mounted and towed survey equipment such as multibeam echosounders, sub-bottom profiler, side-scan sonar, magnetometer and high-resolution 3D multichannel seismic imaging.
Typically, the towed cable lengths will be around four times the water depth while acquiring survey data. The work will be conducted on a 24-hour basis.
As the survey vessel will be restricted in its ability to manoeuvre when surveying, due to the deployment of the towed survey equipment from the vessel for the duration of the survey activities, all other vessels are kindly requested to keep a wide berth.
The work vessel will display all appropriate lights and signals. Mariners are advised to keep continuous watch on VHF Channel 16 when navigating the area.
A map and coordinates of the survey area, as well as contact details, can be found in Marine Notice No 46 of 2024 attached below.