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The Department for Transport commissioned a second survey of the Gaul in 2002. Subsea 7 was awarded a contract to carry out the survey.
The MPSV Seisranger was mobilized in Aberdeen in late June and then sailed for the wreck site. The ship arrived on 1 July 2002 and remained on site until 25th July 2002 . On completion of the Survey the vessel transited back to Aberdeen to demobilize.
Nine Remotely Operated Vehicles were embarked on the Seisranger for the Survey. These consisted of two Workclass ROVs, two Observation ROVs, and five minature ROVs. The minature ROVs were deployed from the workclass ROVs and were used to survey the inside of the ship. One of the minature ROVs was successfully deployed 25m into the wreck to look at equipment in the factory deck. The ROVs were fitted with high quality cameras and lights.
Over 3000 hours of video footage were recorded during the six-week survey. Survey operations were recorded in a realtime online electronic event log. This log enable efficient searching of the large video library during the analysis of the data by experts after the survey. During the Survey there were up to five ROVs working in the water at once.
The Development of new survey techniques and equipment was commissioned by the DfT to achieve the objectives of the Survey. The equipment included minature ROVs which could fly through porthole to survey the inside of the wreck, tools to measure features of interest on the wreck, clear nets and cut access openings into the wreck Following an extensive program of Development and Trails the equipment was embarked on the Seisranger in Aberdeen during the Mobilisation.
Some excellent results were obtained during the survey.
The Gaul is located about 60 miles off the North Cape of Norway in about 280m of water. The wreck is lying intact on the seabed. She is lying level fore to aft and heeled about 30 degrees to starboard. There were significant amounts of fishing net caught on the wreck.
© Crown copyright 2004
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