survey boat

Shallow Draft Survey Vessels

Commercial Rib Charter are able to offer a wide variety of vessels for a multitude of different jobs.

In May 2019 CRC were approached by one of our long standing clients to provide a solution to a unique problem. Our client had won a contract to provide survey and dredging operations at a remote beachside worksite approximately 30 nautical miles south of the nearest port. On-site there were a number of dredgers and multicats which were working 24hr rotations and couldn’t easily return to port for their daily change overs.

In order to minimise costs, fuel burn and time lost to transit, our client approached CRC and asked if we had a fast, shallow draft, multi-role vessel which could combine both crew transfer and survey. The answer was of course yes!

Our catamaran CRC Gladiator was mobilised to the project, capable of speeds up to 26kts whilst carrying 12 PAX she was the obvious choice. The icing on the cake for our client was then having the ability to deploy her pole mounted multibeam survey equipment in waters as shallow as 1.5m; it was clear she was the perfect choice.

This style of vessel proved so successful to the project, that the offshore managers up scaled the dredging operations on-site in order to finish ahead of schedule. This meant a second shallow draft CTV / survey vessel was required and fortunately for them CRC Voyager was available for rapid delivery.

Over the last 15 years, CRC has worked on numerous shallow draft survey projects including;

Rampion Phase 1 Export Cable | North Sea Link | Triton Knoll Export Cable | IFA2 | Nemo Link to name a few.

With the ever growing emphasis on renewable energy and inter connector power sharing between countries, more and more projects like these are on the horizon. With the Viking Link inter connector between the UK and Denmark along with extensions of many Offshore Wind Farms like Phase 2 of Rampion, we are expected to see a big increase in demand for Shallow Draft work boats, Survey Boats and crew Transfer vessels in the coming years.

To find out more about CRCs range of shallow draft survey vessels and crew transfer vessels, call the team on 01590 607103 or email rob@commericlaribcharter.co.uk