Survey ship

The survey ship Norderney in the port of the eponymous island

The sounding ship Greif of the Cuxhaven Waterways and Shipping Office (2007)

The Meridian sounding boat of the Aschaffenburg on the Main waterway construction department in Würzburg (2010)

A survey ship is a ship that is or can be equipped to survey the bed of water . Small ships used for this purpose are also known as sounding boats . DF dinghies are daughter boats of survey or DF vessels. Today, depth measurements are mainly carried out by means of a fan- shaped echo sounder and position measurements by GPS . Also, side scan sonar , sediment sounder and magnetometer often used.

Surveying vessels and DF boats must enable stable, smooth travel with little vibration and at the same time be manoeuvrable. For coastal surveying, they are built with a flat lower ship ( flat bottom ship ) so that they do not run dry even at low tide . When used on rivers and canals, however, the focus is on the maneuverability of the ship or boat. However, converted ships from the private sector are also often used.

The most important tasks are:

• Measurement of flat coasts and mud flats
• Recording of estuaries , fairways and siltations
• Recording of the beds and channels of navigable rivers
• Measurement of sedimentation in river power plants
• Depth measurement of inland lakes
• special assignments in engineering surveying , e.g. B. in bridge construction .

Surveying vessels suitable for the oceans are more likely to be included in the research vessels category because they usually also have biological and other measuring equipment.

In Germany, survey vessels are mainly used in the North Sea , the Baltic Sea and on the major rivers and their tributaries of the first order. The most important owners are construction and surveying departments, power plant operators, the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development and universities.

In Austria and Switzerland, surveying vessels are mainly used on the Danube (electricity construction office), Inn , Enns and Rhine and - depending on location - on larger alpine lakes and in power plant construction.

See also

• Hydrology , geodesy , HiFix
• Fairway , dredger
• Surveying vessels of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency , Capella
• Surveying vessels of the waterways and shipping authorities

Web links

Commons : Survey Vessels  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: survey ship  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations