SEAMOR Marine delivers Chinook ROV to RCMP’s NURTC

SEAMOR Marine has delivered a Chinook remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to the RCMP’s National Underwater Recovery and Training Center (NURTC).

RCMP Underwater Recovery Teams (URT) from Provinces across Canada will now receive the ROV training using a SEAMOR vehicle.

The integration of an ROV into NURTC programs means that all police dive teams will have the ability to use an ROV to operate at depths beyond which it is safe to deploy divers.

Teams will also benefit from reduced time underwater since the ROV can aid both search and recovery aspects of operations.

“We don’t train people to dive, we train them how to do police work underwater,” said Sgt. Jay White, head of the National Underwater Training Centre in Nanaimo B.C. “We take their police knowledge and their dive knowledge and meld them together.”

The integration of the SEAMOR Chinook with the NURTC programs will allow members to receive additional training and ultimately all units will benefit from the addition of an ROV.

This Chinook carries a forward mounted Tritech 720ik Multibeam imaging sonar, an Imagenex 881A mechanical scanning sonar, an external temperature sensor, together with a dual function gripper, auxiliary lights, rear camera and all the standard SEAMOR accessories such as HD video camera with lights, Auto Heading and Auto Depth functions.

The members named the ROV ‘FAB 55685’ in memory of Fabrice Gevaudan, an RCMP diver originally from Paris who was one of four officers killed in the Moncton shooting in 2014.