The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU – Sveriges Landbruks Universitet) has taken delivery of a new 69.50 metre by 15.80 metre beam fishery and oceanographic research vessel built at Astilleros Armon’s Vigo shipyard.
Svea is a Skipsteknisk ST-367 design and has been built to the latest standards in marine research, including underwater noise reduction according to ICES 209.
The vessel is built for worldwide operation, but the emphasis of its activities will be on Baltic waters. Its main activity is ecosystem investigation with a focus on recurrent monitoring of fish stocks and water quality, and it is also used for data collection for studies and understanding of climate change effects, mapping and monitoring of marine biodiversity, mapping and monitoring of eutrophication, measurements of CO2 and the resulting acidification of the oceans, and measurements of oxygen and de-oxygenation of the oceans
The vessel is arranged for a total complement of 28 persons.
Svea is arranged with a diesel electric propulsion plant comprising a 3600mm fixed pitch propeller directly driven by two 1000kW AC propulsion motors in tandem configuration. The power plant consists of two 1350kW, 3512C and one 783kW, 3508C Caterpillar engines, providing a maximum speed of 13.50 knots and a service speed of 11 knots.
Brunvoll supplied the 600kW bow and stern thruster as well as the 860kW retractable 360° azimuthing propeller.
Ibercisa supplied the deck equipment, with a package of specialised hydrographic winches including winches for deploying armoured fibre-optic cables, as well as two two trawl winches, twin net drums, a sounder cable winch and trawl door handling winches.
Scantrol has supplied iSYM Autotrawl system for bottom and pelagic trawl sampling. This system interfaces to the Simrad geometry sensor. This provides the operator with full control of the trawl and trawl doors. Other functionality such as Snag detector automatically detects fasteners to reduce gear damage. The Scantrol system also offers detailed datalogging for analysis and documentation of the trawl haul. iSYM Online Remote assistance can connect via the vessel’s Network for assistance, software upgrades and data download.
Scantrol also supplied five Active Heave Compensation (AHC) systems for Svea, and these systems cancel vessel motion that would otherwise affect deployed systems, enhancing precision and data quality.
The deck cranes, including one fitted with a net roller, are all from Triplex.
The sophisticated research electronics include Simrad EK80 sounders in the drop keel and fitted to one of Svea’s ROTVs, as well as an MS70 sonar and ME70 sounder in the drop keel, plus SX90 low frequency and SH90 high frequency sonars.
Ocean Surveyor ADCP 150kHz and Workhorse Mariner ADCP 600kHz acoustic doppler current profilers from Teledyne Marine are also mounted in the drop keel.
The Remotely Operated Towed Vehicles from MacArtney are a Triaxus is used for CTD profiling and is designed to operate between 1 and 350 metres, and a Focus 2 is used to deploy echo sounders and can be held at a fixed depth.
Furuno supplied the integrated bridge system and the DP1 and AIS systems are from Kongsberg Maritime
