User Stories

“Essentially we believe in the technology and commercially felt to distribute the product well, such an investment was essential,” says JN Taylor General Manager, Ben Mudd. “WASSP multi beam is such a visual solution and quite different to our traditional sounder and sonar technology. We felt for our own sales and technical staff to gain confidence with the product we needed access to a system. We have now had the WASSP in a quick deployment solution for over 12 months but are still blown away at the quality of data, simplicity of use & multiple display formats available through the WASSP GUI & Navigator interface. Mudd says that from a sales context, after completing numerous office-based demonstrations of WASSP with replay files for potential customers, the customers were still not convinced. “However, after 5 minutes running WASSP on board with them customers could see the value & difference of the WASSP solution compared with other existing multi beam, bottom profiling, bathymetric generating systems.” “At the end of the day, we are very happy with our investment on a commercial level & quietly the WASP has certainly enhanced our own success at weekend fishing missions to the local offshore reefs!”

Camborne School of Mines (CSM) is part of the University of Exeter which is at the forefront of research into wave energy. CSM has a 27 foot catamaran used for a variety of research and have equipped with a WASSP WMB-160 to the vessel. The basic equipment was later supplemented with a WASSP Navigator system that enables the WASSP data to be studied offline back at the office, and also a bespoke piece of software that captures the raw data from the WASSP for export into third party processing software such as GIS. The principle function of the WASSP at CSM is as a surveying tool, locating suitable sites for various testing and assessing their characteristics. The WASSP has been highly effective at compiling images of substantial areas of seabed (typically 1km2) in just a few hours of survey time, the precise time needed varying with depth. “By using the WASSP we have been able to place equipment on the seabed exactly where we want it relative to features on the seabed. The level of detail obtained has been impressive given the price of the equipment, with the geological features of bedrock being quite evident,” says Neill Wood, Programme Director: Surveying, Land and Environmental Management, Camborne School of Mines. The latest version of the WASSP with greater data density and improved data export will be on the shopping list when we next buy our next survey vessel.

Tauranga New Zealand based hydrographic surveyors, Discovery Marine Ltd (DML) have recently begun using a WASSP multibeam sonar in their daily operations. DML and WASSP were instrumental during the grounding of the MV Rena wreck in October 2011. At the time of the grounding of the ship on the Astrolabe Reef at the entrance of Tauranga Harbour, port authorities were concerned at the possibility of shipping containers laying on the seabed in vicinity of the ship, which could have posed problems with the salvage effort. Due to the depths around the ship, traditional side scan sonar was not seen as a viable option, the best solution to find missing containers and to pinpoint their location was to carry out a multibeam survey. WASSP Ltd, were able to deliver one of their sonar systems to DML for use within hours of the groundingDML Director Greg Cox says the multibeam sonar has allowed them to accurately and quickly identify and locate a number of containers sitting on the sea floor. “Containers in the water quickly became a serious issue for the salvage operation, so we needed a multibeam sonar quickly,” says Cox. “We contacted WASSP Ltd on Wednesday 19 October, 2011 and the equipment was collected by us the following day from their office in Auckland. Arriving back in Tauranga the next day the equipment was unpacked and checked and we were able to get it installed on our 10.2m vessel by Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, we were out using it.” “We managed to identify 12 targets, 7 of them deemed to be containers lying on the seabed at depths of up to 80m. We have run over the original contacts and confirmed their existence, location, shape and size.” On the functionality of using the WASSP multibeam system, Cox says he was very surprised as to how quickly he was able to get the system up and running and to be able to retrieve usable data to be used in the salvage effort. “The speed of the process was outstanding, from order, to installation and immediate functionality, it’s quite an amazing piece of technology. It is a credit to WASSP Ltd about how quickly they acted, given the severity of this incident for a country like New Zealand.” “Overall, we’re very happy with how quickly our team were able to operate the system. This is a tribute to not only the skills of our surveyors, but also the fact that the WASSP and Navigator viewing software is relatively straight forward to set up and operate.”