The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the U.S. Coast Guard have issued a joint safety alert addressing a dynamic positioning incident involving an offshore supply vessel (OSV) which resulted in a loss of position while conducting a critical outer continental shelf activity. The OSV was attached to a wellhead, lost position and severed the wellhead tree causing a lubricant release on the platform deck and to the environment. Immediately prior to the position loss, the OSV had multiple DP system alarms and failures, including loss of bow thruster and engine control.

Aberdeen-based Aleron Subsea, a company that specializes in the rental and sale of remotely operated subsea vehicles (ROVs) announced today it has won a £3.1 million deal to provide a pair of work-class ROVs to an undisclosed subsea contractor.

The achievements of one of the world’s most experienced commercial diver trainers have been recognised at a prestigious subsea awards ceremony. Alf Leadbitter, diver training authority at The Underwater Centre in Fort William, was presented with the award for Outstanding Contribution to the Subsea Industry at the annual Subsea UK Awards in Aberdeen.

Marine electric vehicles are now a rapidly growing market due to new capability, affordability and legislation banning or restricting internal combustion engines. Our research finds that the market for electric water craft, including those on and under water, will increase rapidly from $2.6 billion in 2013 to $7.3 billion in 2024. In addition there is a market for electric outboard motors that will more than triple in value as high power pure electric versions become increasingly viable. There is also a new market for water borne electric aircraft.

Aberdeenshire East MSP Alex Salmond launched a new North-east company at the recent Subsea Expo Conference in Aberdeen, praising it for showing confidence in the sector at a time of cutbacks. Oldmeldrum-based Subsea Tooling Services is a new business that produces high quality subsea equipment, predominantly for the oil industry.

Siemens has handed over the first North Sea grid connection, BorWin2, to its customer TenneT. The German-Dutch transmission grid operator has accepted the project following successful completion of test runs by Siemens.

Bibby Offshore announced today its Singapore division signed a 1-year ROV services contract earlier this year with subsea contractor Seascape. Bibby has already mobilized their SMD ATOM work-class ROV aboard the Seascape-chartered DP2 dive support vessel Windermere.

 

 

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The 100th anniversary of the first recompression in Australia was celebrated last week when representatives from the WA Pearl Producers Association took a walk down memory lane in Broome. PPA chief executive Aaron Irving said Australia's first recompression happened on February 19, 1915, when a Japanese pearl diver suffering from paralysis caused by the bends was treated in a then-experimental chamber in Broome.

The Colombian Navy has seized over 220 pounds of cocaine and apprehended two stowaways from a U.S-bound tanker in Cartagena Bay. The drugs were discovered by Navy divers inside a secret compartment located near the rudder of the Cyprus-flagged "Prisco Alexander". Also found inside the compartment were the two stowaways, both Colombian nationals, and plastic bags containing food.

The stories of the two shipwrecks couldn't be more dissimilar. One is obscure: the sinking of the steamer Robert J. Walker in 1860 after its collision with a schooner in heavy seas 12 miles off Atlantic City. Twenty-one people lost their lives. The other is world-famous: the loss of RMS Titanic, the "unsinkable" luxury liner that hit an iceberg in 1912, then slipped beneath the Atlantic Ocean. More than 1,500 perished.

The most thorough documentation yet of a shipwreck in Reeds Lake was cut short mid-afternoon Friday after the Grand Valley State University survey team started having difficulty with equipment.

Underwater archaeology sounds like something you’d only find in adventure movies like Indiana Jones or in the books of Clive Cussler. Turns out, it’s a real-life career, and, I’m sorry to say, is just as enviable and FOMO-inducing as you might imagine.

At a recent advanced concepts symposium, NASA scientists unveiled a conceptual plan to explore the frigid methane and ethane seas on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, using a robotic submarine. The details were presented at the 2015 NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Earlier this month, some people in Northern Ireland started seeing their broadband speeds slow right down. How come? Well it turns out that an undersea fibre optic cable that supplies Northern Ireland with Virgin Media's broadband had broken. Fixing it would involve a crack team of specialist engineers, a boat and a robot.

Engineers at the Naval Research Laboratory are developing an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that mimics the motions and actions of a reef fish, the bird wrasse. The goal is to have an AUV that can navigate and maneuver through coastal waters, a low-speed task that requires agility and the ability to detect and determine the surrounding environment. The Navy already has UAVs suited to high-speed, long-distance missions in open waters. Now it wants similar capabilities for coastal waters which are cluttered with obstacles and plagued with dynamically changing currents.