One sure way for a vessel owner to increase his operating expenses is to ignore the growth building up on the bottom of his boat. There’s no getting around the fact that a heavily fouled bottom leads to increased fuel expenses.
What’s the best way to monitor that growth so you know when to clean the bottom? Hiring a diver can cost up to $4,000, depending on how big the boat is. In addition, you have to schedule a time for the diver, verify that the water flow is less than one knot, and get authorization from the port authority for the diver.
Another option is SeaDrone, a company in Mountain View, Calif., that started out building underwater drone inspection systems for aquaculture operators but soon realized the shipping industry was a much bigger market for their underwater remotely operated vehicles. One of those, the SeaDrone Inspector 3, is an underwater drone that can complete a hull inspection in one hour, with enough detail to satisfy the needs of classification societies.
You can buy a SeaDrone ROV or rent one that comes with a tutorial video. But whether buying or renting, the learning curve is minimal. SeaDrone CEO Eduardo Moreno puts the time at under an hour for the SeaDrone Inspector 3. To get it out of the box and up and running in the water only takes about three minutes.
Once in the water, the battery operated, thruster powered SeaDrone is on a tether that’s controlled from an iPad with Wi-Fi capability. Controlling the SeaDrone “is very intuitive,” said Moreno, “because you are using an iPad touch screen” to control the ROV with the SeaDrone app. The tether serves as the data link…
