A specialist Royal Navy hydrographic team has been carrying out continuous seabed surveys in the Firth of Clyde since the spring, gathering data on water depth, seabed features and composition in support of operations, the Royal Navy stated.
The work is being conducted by Hydrographic eXploitation Group 3, part of the wider Hydrographic Exploitation Group based at HMNB Devonport. The team has been operating out of local towns and marinas around the Clyde, working from one of the group’s three 15-metre Vahana survey vessels and using specialist equipment to collect and analyse bathymetric data across designated survey areas.
According to the Royal Navy, the information gathered will feed into maintaining a comprehensive picture of the seabed and support future maritime activity. The Hydrographic Exploitation Group surveys waters ranging from shallow coastal areas out to deep ocean environments.
Alongside the data collection, the deployment has served as a training opportunity. Working in demanding conditions has allowed personnel to sustain and develop surveying skills, and the task has required the team to revisit techniques used less often in modern survey work, among them the establishment of geodetic base stations and the deployment of tidal monitoring equipment. The service says the deployment has tested both the equipment and the team’s ability to adapt to mission requirements.
The team has worked closely with the UK Hydrographic Office during the deployment, an arrangement the Royal Navy describes as allowing both organisations to share expertise and refine survey methodologies while contributing data supporting UK maritime operations.
Hydrographic survey has been a Royal Navy function for more than two centuries, with the Hydrographic Office established in 1795 and its charts subsequently adopted as a global standard. The service’s dedicated survey capability has contracted in recent years following the decommissioning of HMS Enterprise and HMS Echo, both of which left service in 2022 after two decades of survey and mine countermeasures support work. HMS Scott, the ocean survey vessel that operated deep water multibeam sonar, was withdrawn in 2022 as well.
The Hydrographic Exploitation Group was subsequently established as a Devonport-based organisation intended to deliver survey output through smaller craft and deployable teams rather than dedicated hydrographic ships, working alongside the Royal Navy’s wider survey, meteorological and oceanographic branch. Its Vahana-class boats can be moved by road and operated from harbours and marinas without requiring the support infrastructure a survey ship demands.
Id have thought it would have been done years ago
RN hydrographers have mapped the world. Assume features, obstacles may change and updates periodically needed, especially regards Submarine operations.