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Articles

1986: Vol. LXIII, No. 1

Maximum Mobility Survey Team

Submitted
July 31, 2015
Published
2015-07-21

Abstract

Although Ireland has a long seafaring tradition and has produced many famous sailors such as Commodore John Barry, “Father of the U.S. Navy”, many of the charts of Irish coastal waters are out of date and there is a constant need for their revision and updating. The Office of Public Works is a government body which carries out a wide variety of engineering work and for some of this a certain amount of inshore hydrographic surveying is required. For various reasons, the team that carries out most of this surveying is very small but is also highly mobile. This mobility is essential as the surveys are spread around the entire coast as well as on some rivers. To aid rapid deployment, the equipment has been kept to a minimum and all mounting hardware has been so designed that it can easily be transported to difficult sites, such as small islands, and mounted on whatever boats are available locally. Position fixing is usually carried out by the fixed transit and cut-off angle method, although electronic or resection methods are used when conditions require them. A considerable amount of post-dredging surveying is carried out and for this a Raytheon Channel Sweep System is used. The mounting equipment for this has also been designed for ease of transport and flexibility of attachment to local boats.