The benefits of remotely operated hydrographic surveying with the Oceanscience Z-Boat 1800 were exploited to great effect by surveyors from Safer, Kline and Warren during cable route surveys in Ohio.
The survey locations were inaccessible by a manned boat, and water velocities were too high to have people wading in the water. The Z-Boat 1800 offered the only solution to get high quality survey data that their client needed before laying cables under the river.
Z-Boat 1800 was deployed through the numerous fallen trees and logs, and the survey was then conducted by the principal surveyor standing on the river bank with just the remote control transmitter and a laptop.
The data quality offered by the Seafloor Systems 200kHz depth sounder met the standards required and bottom following performance was excellent even in the shallowest survey areas that typically cannot be reached by a manned boat. The low (8 inch) draft of the Z‐Boat was quite useful throughout this survey.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , April 20, 2012; Image: Oceanscience