This morning my husband and I were watching a program on the History Channel 2 called Digging for the Truth with host Josh Bernstein. The program was based on underwater survey of a site off the coast of Crete, and they were in the process of fitting a ship with the necessary equipment to do a sonar sweep of the depths in the Mediterranean Sea to search for they mythical site of Atlantis. I started thinking about the use of specific equipment in searching for wrecks, and decided to refer to David Mearns for some information on equipment he's used in his explorations. David has given me permission to use excerpts from his books, and in The Search for the Sydney: How Australia's Greatest Maritime Mystery was Solved, I found some great references to the importance of sonar (also referred to as a "towfish") in surveying the location of a shipwreck. Page 122 has a section titled 'The nuts and bolts of a shipwreck search', with David writing:
“In deciding which technology and methods would work best in the search for Kormoran and Sydney I never had any doubts that the correct tool to use was a deeptow side-scan sonar. This technology had been pioneered in the 1980's and it was ideal for locating lost shipwrecks in the deep ocean, especially when the area to be searched was large. I had used this type of sonar in the past to locate much deeper shipwrecks, including Lucona, Derbyshire and Hood, as well as the SS Rio Grande, a German blockade runner that Blue Water Recoveries found at the mind-boggling depth of 5,762 metres and in doing so was awarded a Guinness World Record for discovering the world's deepest shipwreck. Nevertheless, while depth was a factor in our choice of equipment, it was actually the combination of extreme depth plus the enormous search area that made the search for Kormoran and Sydney a perfect candidate for using this rather unique search tool........In its most general form a sonar can be thought of as a powerful underwater flashlight that uses sound waves, instead of light, to image objects on the seabed. Specifically, a side-scan sonar is one that is towed at the end of a long steel cable connected to a survey ship and can scan the seabed to either side of the ship's track to create a coherent two-dimensional map of the surface and objects lying upon it. Under the watchful eye of a skilled expert viewing and interpreting the sonar images as they are created in real time, a side-scan sonar is the surest way to detect shipwrecks whether their hulls are intact or shattered and even when the surrounding seabed is complicated by rugged geological formations.
A deeptow side-scan sonar is simply one that can operate very deeply, to a maximum of 6,000 metres (3.25 nautical miles).”
David goes on to explain that this sonar needs to be towed at great depths in order to obtain acoustic shadows, which “can tell us a great deal of information about the height and shape of the object, especially as the basic two-dimensional nature of a sonar image means that an object's height is not directly apparent in the image and has to be inferred.” The particular sonar he used for this venture to locate Sydney and Kormoran was the SM-30 side-scan sonar from Williamson & Associates, pictured above from page 124 of the book. If you'd like to learn more about the capabilities of this sonar, check out the web site: http://www.wassoc.com/Upload/Specifications/sm30.pdf
If I get really lucky, some day I'll get to see this piece of equipment in action as it locates the debris field and wreck of the USS Strong DD 467. Until then, I'll continue to learn what I can about what it will take to get us there.
Tammi
“In deciding which technology and methods would work best in the search for Kormoran and Sydney I never had any doubts that the correct tool to use was a deeptow side-scan sonar. This technology had been pioneered in the 1980's and it was ideal for locating lost shipwrecks in the deep ocean, especially when the area to be searched was large. I had used this type of sonar in the past to locate much deeper shipwrecks, including Lucona, Derbyshire and Hood, as well as the SS Rio Grande, a German blockade runner that Blue Water Recoveries found at the mind-boggling depth of 5,762 metres and in doing so was awarded a Guinness World Record for discovering the world's deepest shipwreck. Nevertheless, while depth was a factor in our choice of equipment, it was actually the combination of extreme depth plus the enormous search area that made the search for Kormoran and Sydney a perfect candidate for using this rather unique search tool........In its most general form a sonar can be thought of as a powerful underwater flashlight that uses sound waves, instead of light, to image objects on the seabed. Specifically, a side-scan sonar is one that is towed at the end of a long steel cable connected to a survey ship and can scan the seabed to either side of the ship's track to create a coherent two-dimensional map of the surface and objects lying upon it. Under the watchful eye of a skilled expert viewing and interpreting the sonar images as they are created in real time, a side-scan sonar is the surest way to detect shipwrecks whether their hulls are intact or shattered and even when the surrounding seabed is complicated by rugged geological formations.
A deeptow side-scan sonar is simply one that can operate very deeply, to a maximum of 6,000 metres (3.25 nautical miles).”
David goes on to explain that this sonar needs to be towed at great depths in order to obtain acoustic shadows, which “can tell us a great deal of information about the height and shape of the object, especially as the basic two-dimensional nature of a sonar image means that an object's height is not directly apparent in the image and has to be inferred.” The particular sonar he used for this venture to locate Sydney and Kormoran was the SM-30 side-scan sonar from Williamson & Associates, pictured above from page 124 of the book. If you'd like to learn more about the capabilities of this sonar, check out the web site: http://www.wassoc.com/Upload/Specifications/sm30.pdf
If I get really lucky, some day I'll get to see this piece of equipment in action as it locates the debris field and wreck of the USS Strong DD 467. Until then, I'll continue to learn what I can about what it will take to get us there.
Tammi
RSS Feed