Associated British Ports (ABP) has celebrated the launch of its latest survey vessel Humber Sounder with a naming ceremony at the Port of Hull.
The ceremony, which was conducted last week by Father Colum Kelly of the Apostleship of the Sea, was attended by ABP staff and customers, as well as representatives of Blyth Workboats, which built the 14-meter catamaran.
The Humber Sounder will be used to survey and manage the channels and waterways in and around the Humber Estuary.
Harbor Master for the Humber Andrew Firman , said: “The Humber is one of the most challenging waterways in the world, with a catchment area of around 10,000 square miles, draining around 20 per cent of England’s water into the North Sea. It also has up to 10 million cubic meters of silt in suspension at any one time, which unfortunately has a habit of coming to rest in inconvenient places.
“The Estuary has some of the largest tidal ranges in the UK and the shallowest shipping lanes and this makes managing these lanes and channels a challenge for us all.
“This new vessel is manoeuvrable enough to negotiate the narrow confines of the Ouse or the Trent, while at the same time the twin hulls provide a stable platform for surveying in the more interesting conditions of the North Sea.”
The Humber Sounder is fitted with almost £250,000 of survey equipment which operates to centimeter accuracy and an ‘A’ crane on the deck which allows greater versatility of operations.