Class society Bureau Veritas (BV) and service provider MaDfly – Marine Drone Services – have completed the first full in-water ship’s hull survey with a mini ROV on Brittany Ferries’ ‘Bretagne’.
The survey, which was supervised by BV on behalf of the French Flag administration, provided an opportunity to validate the integrity of the entire ship’s hull’s bottom.
Efficient underwater ship inspections are playing an increasingly important role as a substitute for docking surveys at agreed intervals or occasional surveys of hull damage, BV said.
This inspection was claimed to be the first of its kind, with the test survey performed twice. A remotely operated drone performed an in-water survey with a BV surveyor on board the vessel.
In parallel, BV also tested the capability with its own remote inspection solutions using full HD live video footage from MaDfly. This enabled BV to carry out the survey remotely without a surveyor being on board with live streaming, as well as video and audio recording and photo options.
BV claimed the following benefits of using this system as:
• safer operations as divers do not have to be in the water
• reduction in preparation time – with a single operator and limited equipment
• high-quality pictures from the drones
• reduced risk of disturbance to ship operations.
“MaDfly’s team is delighted to be the first company in the world to achieve a vessel survey with a mini ROV for Bureau Veritas. Even more for a Brittany Ferries’ vessel as they supported us from the very first day. New technologies are improving daily to achieve more and more maintenance services in a safer and more cost-effective way,” said MaDfly CEO, Thierry Guillot.
Brittany Ferries Technical Director, Arnaud Le Poulichet, said that the cruise operator has always invested in research and development and this partnership was a success.
“This underwater inspection with a mini ROV demonstrated the technical relevance of this method and reduced the inspection time,” he added.
According to BV’s Senior Vice President Technical and Operations Marine and Offshore, Laurent Leblanc, underwater remote surveys improve safety and reduce risk, time and costs to produce high-quality results.
