Kongsberg Maritime will equip Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers with multibeam echo sounders
Kongsberg Maritime will be providing high-resolution EM712 multibeam echo sounders to the Canadian Coast Guard’s medium icebreakers, CCGS Pierre Radisson and the CCGS Des Groseillers. The innovative, retractable design of the new systems will contribute to optimising the performance of the sounder when deployed and will protect it when the vessel is breaking ice, thus facilitating gathering critical hydrographic data in the challenging waters of the Canadian Arctic.
The EM712, when deployed, can collect valuable navigational and scientific data from otherwise inaccessible parts of the world and is capable of mapping a swath of the seabed up to 3,000m wide and in 3,600m of water.
Kongsberg Maritime has been a trusted supplier of multibeam echo sounders and electronics to the Government of Canada since the early 1980s, with the first such system installed on the research vessel CCGS Amundsen in 2003, in operation for 14 years. CCGS Amundsen, like CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, is equipped with Kongsberg ice-protected, deep-water sounders larger than the EM712. The light icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, on the other hand, is equipped with a retractable Kongsberg EM 2040C high resolution, shallow-water multi-beam echo- sounder.
Dr. Alix Valenti
