Hydrographic Society South Africa

News Revival of The Hydrographic Society of South Africa (HSSA) After a number of years of inactivity, it was decided to try and make 2002 a comeback year for the South African Hydro-graphic Society. Three stalwart members decided, over a few drinks at Royal Cape Yacht Club, that to revive the Society, it was important to make the get-togethers informal (and not call them meetings); to ensure that they are held regularly (once a month); to invite as many of the marine community to attend (members and non-members alike) as possible and to provide a forum for like-minded corporations and... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

South Pacific Hydrography

In April this year I represented the South West Pacific Hydrographic Commission (SWPHC) at the eleventh meeting of the Pacific Islands Maritime Association and the first Meeting of Pacific Minsters of Transport. During the discussions I was reminded of the unique challenges the South Pacific Ocean has for hydrographers. A relatively small number of ships transit about 16% of the earth’s surface, some 41,500,000 square kilometres of this falling within the boundaries of the SWPHC. Distances of 2,000 to 3,000 kilometres between the ports of the region are common. The South has a few sub-Antarctic Islands buffeted by the Roaring... (read more)

2007-09-04 12:00:00

South African Hydrographer Honoured

Captain Abri Kampfer, the Hydrographer of South Africa has been awarded the Alexander Dalrymple Award for services to hydrography. As Abri was unable to attend the presentation in person, this national award was presented by Under Secretary of State for Defence, Kevan Jones MP, to Brigadier General Fakir, the defence naval advisor to the South African High Commission, on his behalf. Abri, a close colleague of the UK National Hydrographer and a highly respected figure in the International Hydrographic Organization, has worked tirelessly to represent his region and to develop its hydrographic and cartographic expertise and capabilities and at... (read more)

2009-07-08 09:51:49

South Australian Port Development

Two GeoSwath wide-swath bathymetric sonars are being used for regular hydrographic port surveys around the South Australian coast, providing bathymetry and side-scan data for use in the development and maintenance of this national infrastructure. Recent projects include the pre, progress, and post-dredge monitoring of the major shipping channels to Port Adelaide and Port Giles which were deepened to accommodate panamax vessels. HydroSurvey Australia is the hydrographic survey business arm of Flinders Ports, with the core task of performing recurrent surveys of navigational channels and berths for design and maintenance purposes. As well as using the GeoSwath data for planning... (read more)

2009-04-15 03:00:04

SeaZone in South America

SeaZone Solutions, UK, has expanded its data coverage to over 40% of the world’s ocean and continues to expand into new geographic areas. The most recent addition is Charted Raster covering various locations across the waters adjacent to South America. Inspired by feedback from SeaZone customers, this follows the recently acquired mapping coverage of Canadian and French waters and includes content from the former French colonies. The timely delivery of new product content in the HydroSpatial Base marine mapping product has enabled some users within the growing marine-mapping user group to win major contracts in these areas of new product... (read more)

2012-08-02 12:00:00

South-west Coastal Monitoring Contract

Coastline Surveys, UK, has been awarded a five-year programme to provide single beam and bathymetric surveys to the South West Region in relation to coastal monitoring. The surveys are scheduled to support the national network of strategic regional coastal monitoring programmes-framework agreement in the South West Region. (read more)

2012-02-15 11:08:31

Inland ECDIS in South America

Duvoel Ltda from Montevideo, Uruguay have created ENCs of the Hidrovja, a river network over the countries Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, mainly composed of the rivers Paraguay and Paraná. Great importance was attached to the bathymetry and to updating the existing river banks. In 105 days more than 20,000km were surveyed, generating a navigational channel covering nearly 3,000km of the rivers. The ENCs were created using the SevenCs ENC Tools production suite. The bases of the ENCs were existing paper charts which were scanned and geo-referenced with ENC Referencer. The river banks and navigational aids were then captured using... (read more)

2005-04-15 12:00:00

Hydrographic Society of South Africa

News Besides its regular monthly get-togethers, the Society has had a busy time planning a Hydrographic Course, the Technical Awareness Seminar (TAS 05) and an outing to a locally based Training Facility, the South African Maritime Training Academy (SAMTRA). Hydrographic Course The HSSA, in conjunction with the Cape Town Technicon, is planning to run a Hydrographic Course over a 3 month period in the first half of 2005. This course will be open to second and third year diploma students at the Technical College as well as anyone from the marine industry who would like to brush up on their... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

Hydrographic Society of South Africa

News It has been decided to postpone the Annual General Meeting of the Hydrographic Society of South Africa (HSSA) until after the end of the financial year (February 2003). This will allow some time to prepare an audited review of the financial standing of the Society, as well as provide members with more time to consider their nominations for their new committee. A number of shortcomings in the existing HSSA Constitution have been identified and it has been generally agreed that the Constitution needs revision and modernisation, this not having taken place since its inception in 1974. After the election... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00

Hydrographic Society of South Africa

News The second AGM of the revamped Hydrographic Society of South Africa was held in late February 2004, with the re-election of Aubrey Price (Reson) as Presi-dent of the Society and Eddie Guild (Fugro) making way for Steve Smith (Pertec) as Secretary/Treasurer. Eddie was thanked for his two-year service and, although officially let off the hook, will be called in on occasions to assist with the smooth running of the Society. The Presidents address reflected on the achievements of the past year and in particular the success of the Technical Awareness Seminar (TAS) as reported in the March Edition of... (read more)

2008-01-01 01:00:00