Hydrographic Society Benelux

News
On Friday 16th April 2004 the Hydrographic Society held a workshop in Zierikzee, sponsored by Noordhoek. The theme of the afternoon meeting was ‘ROV support for underwater construction’ and the programme consisted of four lectures that gave attendees the opportunity to take a closer look at Noordhoek activities and to learn more about ROV-related subjects.
Peter Boon, Survey Operations Manager of Noordhoek Offshore BV, in the first lecture gave an introduction to and an overview of the sub-sea activities and projects of the three Noordhoek companies: Noordhoek Offshore, Noordhoek Diving Company and Seatec Underwater Systems.
Noordhoek began the company with diving activities (inspection, repair and constructions) and has gradually grown into more underwater/sub-sea/offshore services such as survey and positioning.

Michiel van der Munt of Allseas followed, describing ROV services in support of pipeline installation works. Michiel started with an overview of the Allseas fleet and the type of work-class ROVs used by Allseas for pipeline installation and trenching support works. The tasks of the ROV for the various project stages were reviewed. Michiel explained the use of survey instrumentation mounted on the ROV for pre-engineering, pre-lay and post-lay survey, as well as tooling equipment on the ROVs to support various installation works. Following ROV survey data acquisition, the processing and reporting of various ROV-survey datasets were discussed, including final deliverables to the client. Michiel ended his overview with the wish to explore new ROV survey challenges for deeper water pipe-lay projects, for near real-time onboard ROV survey data delivery, hostile environments (higher currents, higher seas) and, last but not least, for working more closely together with the installation engineers on integrated services.

After this sunny break and a cup of coffee, the workshop continued with a presentation by Gert Riemersma of MAPIX technologies, entitled ‘Digital Video and GIS’. One of the main tasks of an inspection ROV is the recording of video, which up until now has been performed using (S)VHS recorders. Review and management of VHS videotapes has always been very cumbersome and time-consuming and the use of digital video recording and review techniques has many benefits. As many as 48 VHS tapes are collected per day during a normal ROV pipeline inspection survey, VHS tape changes can result in as much as two hours of lost time per day and review of the VHS video is an inefficient process. Digital video not only reduces or eliminate these problems, but has many other benefits as well, such as:

• No degradation in quality when making copies
  
• Random access to the video by searching on KP or Easting & Northing
  
• Multi-User access from a Desktop PC
  
• Improved eventing, QC and reporting
  
• Direct comparison of video with other survey data

Gert drew attention to the fact that these benefits can only be fully realised if all the aspects of recording, distribution and review of digital video are properly managed. He explained that you have to consider the video format, recording medium, image quality, distribution, and review requirements from the outset to prevent a data management nightmare. The review of digital video is ideally suited for a GIS, such as the ESRI ArcGIS, as it is just another geographical dataset and can be directly compared to other datasets collected during the survey.

After this eye-opener, Sjoerd Meijer of Jumbo Offshore took attendees to the world of heavy lift transportation and installation works. He first gave an overview of the heavy lift activities, the vessels and tools such as ‘fly jibs’ and ‘suction anchors’. He gave an impression of the newly built Jumbo Javelin, fitted with two 800ton cranes, which will be able to transport its loads with a speed of 17 knots. Using very high-tech animations, Sjoerd showed us the transport and installation of a jacket platform.

For the TSEP (Trunkline System Expansion Project) in Perth, Australia, Jumbo was contracted to transport and hand over two valve skids (351 and 138 tonnes) with the Jumbo Vision. For this project, Jumbo made some adjustments to its vessel so that the load could be transported from the deck to a depth of 100 meters, where the hand-over took place. A working-class ROV executed hand-over to the CSO Venturer, which actually installed the valve skids. Based on Jumbo’s experience of the TSEP, the Jumbo Javelin will be equipped with linear or traction winches and a DPII system. With the help of Huisman, a new ROV is currently being developed that will operate from the Javelin and will be able to manoeuvre loads of up to 300 tons into the right position. This combination will be used for deep-water deployment of suction anchors, pile handling, pipeline tie-ins, jumper and mattress installations.

With another animation of this new-class ROV, Sjoerd ended his presentation and that left Peter Boon to thank the lecturers for their informative presentations and invite all attendees for some drinks and snacks. With this informal social event the some forty attendees closed the afternoon.

Agenda
18th June 2004: Ecology, Environment and Hydrography, Antwerp
8th September 2004: Corporate workshop Simrad bv, Rotterdam
15th October 2004: Airborne survey, Delft
10th December 2004: Oceanography, Delft

Contact
Att. T.H. Heringa
Postbus 175
1970 AD IJmuiden
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 255 545 622
Fax: +31 255 545 645
www.hydrographicsociety.nl