Bathymetric Surveys

I do plenty of bathymetric surveys. Can you elaborate on what you mean by ƒ??remote control hardwareƒ?? Are you looking to do this work autonomously with an unmanned boat or are you referring to the actual sounding equipment being used to acquire depths and positions?

Also what type of bottom coverage are you looking to get. In other words are you looking to have a full bottom picture like a laser scanner would produce or do you just need to get the general bottom conditions similar to a typical topographic survey.

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Looking at unmanned boat and general bottom conditions.
Like the Z-Boat or similar.

We have the Seafloor Systems Hydrone. It can be configured to work autonomously as well as remote controlled. One word of wisdom... Don't use any of them in a swift current. You'll be chasing them down the river.

looks nice.
https://noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com/tag/z-boat/
when I was doing Bathymetric surveys "old school" (paper chart recording fathometer) some clients demanded minimum boat length and beam. Surge and swells... but perhaps the vertical is GPS now.
I would check with your prospective clients and permitting agencies before I spent much.
(maybe the newer models are more capable)

FairleyWell, post: 453459, member: 12279 wrote: We have the Seafloor Systems Hydrone. It can be configured to work autonomously as well as remote controlled. One word of wisdom... Don't use any of them in a swift current. You'll be chasing them down the river.

use a tether, sweep bank to bank and then drift down a bit, zigzag like... like we did with skifs.

We've done a few, but always from a manned boat that we hire at the various sites. This means the equipment needs to be adaptable to mount on varying boat shape, so the next step for us will indeed be a remote controlled boat. We'll go for one that can be transported on commercial flights as passenger check in baggage, as we do a lot of work in other countries in the Pacific and around the islands in Fiji. Transporting batteries is probably going to be an issue.

I'm not sure if my experience will be insightful enough or not, but I just finished up a school project where a teammate and myself used the Hydrone with a Sonarmite on a golf course pond. Very easy to set up and use.

Solstice813, post: 453438, member: 11910 wrote: Like the Z-Boat or similar.

We have a z-boat with single beam echosounder. Ours does not have autonomous capabilities - but this would be nice if you were doing a big still lake on a calm day. It's very capable. It's not cheap compared to a skiff and a Sonarmite. It's been reliable - no breakdowns that resulted in the loss of production (knock on wood). It's transportable but has to be shipped air cargo if shipped in the crate. You could transport it out of the crate for short flights in a small plane (it wouldn't fit in a super cub) or probably even a Hughes 500 (definitely in a Jet Ranger or Aerostar). We use the z-boat in swift water - here's a link to a x-section in a swift water river - it's towards the upper limit of operating conditions:
[MEDIA=youtube]revP-D6VjCk[/MEDIA]

In short - the z-boat is the best tool I've seen for this type of work but...

Teledyne bought Oceanscience (the original company that developed the z-boat). Teledyne is a company that buys companies and has taken an interest in all things hydrographic. Since then, staff at Oceanscience has changed and they've incorporated hardware from some of the other companies they've bought into the z-boat - I'm not sure if this is a net gain or not but customer service has not been as good for me.

The guy who developed the z-boat (Adrian McDonald) is now at CEE hydro systems (echosounder company). He's developed a new system based on the ARC-Boat remotely operated vehicle from HR Wallingford, It's a little different than the z-boat - it has fixed props, the bow detaches (easier to transport), and more. I don't know much about the ARC-boat but the Adrian is a smart guy and I'd be surprised if the new boat wasn't noticeably better - he knows what the z-boat can do and he knows he needs to beat that. I'd definitely look at the ARC Boats as configured by CEE (CEE USV) http://www.ceehydrosystems.com/products/unmanned-survey-vessels/

Keep in mind that whatever boat you get, you are at about 50% of the total cost when you factor in all of the support equipment and training needed. We always have a cataraft or skiff stationed downstream for safety (but have never had to use it), our staff has swift water rescue training (in addition to all of the other training required), vehicle to transport all of this stuff (it won't fit inside of an already loaded survey rig), hydro software, spare parts (job stopping breakdown is not an option) etc. All of the "stuff" requires some level of customization to your application.

It's not a slam dunk but it's much safer than putting a person/people on the river and there are some definite data acquisition advantages. It continues to be a good system for us.

Keep us posted.

Both the Hydrone and Zboat are great tools and I have used them both! Cost might be the deciding factor. A multi beam system will be expensive and will most likely require extra training, equipment and software such as HYPACK. If you go for a single beam solution you could make it as easy as using a sonarmite with a typical survey controller and RTK antenna. Or you can get a more advanced single beam system that can take into account all the proper corrections such as temperature variations throughout the water column.

It really depends on the work you want to do with the unit and the amount of time and money you have!

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Thanks for all the in sight. We are still "researching", found out one of my suppliers is a SeaFloor Systems dealer. Gone are the days of throwing a weighted cloth tape over the side of the boat with a broken prop.
To be continued !!!!

My preferred method 🙂

foggyidea, post: 453579, member: 155 wrote: My preferred method 🙂

That's not going to work----I sold my 9' 8" Gordon and Smith big board I bought in '66 a few years ago.

foggyidea, post: 453579, member: 155 wrote: My preferred method 🙂

Hey Foggy,

Where you are that is white shark bait. I can hear the Jaws theme now.

Floyd Carrington, post: 453903, member: 474 wrote: Where you are that is white shark bait. I can hear the Jaws theme now.

Of course you can hear the Jaws theme - you're only 40 miles from Montauk.