Van Oord has christened a trio of new craft, including an unmanned survey vessel VO:X Barentsz in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The USV was named alongside two new hybrid water injection dredgers, Rijn and Rhône at the company’s head office jetty in the city.
VO:X Barentsz is Van Oord’s fifth unmanned autonomous survey vessel was christened by Lucienne van Leeuwen-Koper.
The company’s in-house survey department and DEMCON Unmanned Systems have jointly developed and successfully operated four USV’s in the past years. After the successful deployment of these vessels, Van Oord contracted DEMCON unmanned systems for a fifth USV specialised for operations at sea, the VO:X Barentsz.
This new larger vessel is also an evolution of the four other USVs, said Van Oord, building upon the same hardware and software USV platform system and expanding this vessel with new technologies and more functionalities for offshore operations.
USVs enable the company to obtain more measuring data for its clients at lower costs. In addition, deploying these vessels increases safety by eliminating an onboard operator and surveyor.
The christening ceremony also marked the farewell of Pieter van Oord, who led the company as chief executive for over 15 years. At the same time, the event marked the inaugural official act of new boss Govert van Oord, the fifth-generation chief executive for the family-owned company.