Industry & Partner News Q1 2008

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HYDRO 2007

Australasian Hydrographic Conference Cairns - Australia

HYDRO 2007 was held in conjunction with the RAN AHS Hydrographic Symposium from 19-24 Nov 2007 at the Cairns Convention Centre, Queensland, Australia. The RAN symposium was held from Monday through to Wednesday while HYDRO 2007 was held from Wednesday through to Saturday.

Kevin Smith (middle) on the HSA booth

The theme of the conference was “Focus on Asia” with approximately 150 delegates attending from around the world with a large number from Australia and New Zealand. The conference featured a large RAN contingent due to the port of Cairns being the home port of the RAN Hydrographic Survey Fleet. Paul Hornsby and Ron Furness went to a great deal of trouble to ensure high ranking RAN officers (VA Ritchie & RA Coates) attended the conference in order to maintain the profile of hydrography. Consequently HYDRO 2007 featured on Channel 7 & 9 news broadcasts.

A Cairns lunch - prawns and beer!

HYDRO 2007 has capitalised on the success of HYDRO 2003 held at Christchurch NZ in promoting Hydrography in the Asia Pacific arena. Given this type of conference is only held every 4 years in the southern hemisphere it was well worth attending. The conference provided an excellent opportunity for delegates from around the world to be in the one place with a number of  clients, contactors and suppliers.

Watch the Australian Hydrographic website for follow up photos.

(submitted by Kevin Smith HSA)

Hydrographic Society Education Award

The Australasian Hydrographic Society is pleased to announce the award for 2007 was Lawrence Bishop from University of Otago.

The Education Award Panel unanimously concluded that the objectives of the research by Lawrence Bishop will provide benefits to hydrographers at large while fulfilling all the requirements of the AHS. The aim is to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of modern hydrographic survey techniques for marine environmental, engineering and navigation applications. The publication of the results of this research should provide a practical guide to the parameters that require consideration by non-specialist organisations involved in hydrographic and marine projects. From the applicant's perspective the research will provide him with a broader knowledge of hydrographic surveying necessary for his Category A Hydrographic Studies.

(submitted by Peter Knight)

HYDROpro celebrates 20 years

The photo shows Bruce Sinclair, Gary Chisholm(Trimble), Mark Allan, Maurice Perwick, Richard Paulsen, and Marton Sinclair at the celebration of the event held at Eliot Sinclairs and Partners new offices.

Gary Chisholm of Trimble and Maurice Perwick of Eliot Sinclair and Partners Ltd cut the 'HYDROpro' cake in August 2007 to celebrate 20 years use of the Navigation and Hydrographic data processing software. Staff at Eliot Sinclair and Partners Ltd

1987 saw Eliot Sinclair and Partners Ltd commission 'HydroDos' software from Datacom Software Research Ltd for the survey of Lyttelton Harbour in the South Island of New Zealand. The system used a Geodimeter 440, manually tracked, for positioning and Navitronics digital sounder for Depths. In the early '90's a system was developed to use Differential GPS for a Real-time Hydrographic survey and plotting system for surveying the Westport Bar. This system used Trimble 4000 recievers, TSS heave, Odom dual Frequency sounders, and Sencon Tide Gauge with Beech Communications Ltd telemetry. Eliot Sinclair used a similar system during the development of Chek Lap Kok, the new Hong Kong Airport at the time along with RTK GPS for setting out works on the site.RTK GPS and HYDRO software was used on hundreds of projects including a project in 1994 for measuring Tide offshore along the Canterbury Coast remote from any tide gauge for profiling the beach.Trimble HYDROpro on the Microsoft Windows platform opened up the world of on-screen graphics to assist in navigation, monitoring of equipment, logging data and colour binning.

What will the next 20 years bring?

(submitted by Maurice Perwick of Eliot Sinclair and Partners Ltd)

Recent awarding of Contracts by LINZ

The following contracts have been made public (Dec 07) by LINZ:

(material from LINZ)

FIG Commission 4 Website - Hydrography

For those interested please check this site out: www.fig.net/commission4/index.htm

Guidelines for Specialist Certification in Hydrography

The Australasian Hydrographic Surveyors Certification Panel (AHSCP) is the body that assesses applications for Specialist Certification in Hydrography, on behalf of the SSI Professional Certification Panel and NZIS Membership Services Committee, and makes recommendations to these bodies regarding approval of those applications. For your information they are pleased to report that they have published the Guidelines for Specialist Certification in Hydrography. This is posted on the NZIS web site www.surveyors.org.nz/hydrographic.asp

(submitted by Simon Ironside, AHSCP)

Snippets of News

Changes at NZ Ocean Technology SERVICES Ltd - the company has undergone a name change, to Ocean Data Systems Ltd. Street address, postal address and landline telephone numbers remain the same, though there is a new e-mail address (colin@oceandata.co.nz)  and cellphone number +64 (0)21 392333. Website is www.oceandata.co.nz. These changes only affect NZ Ocean Technology SERVICES Ltd, which is a separate company from New Zealand Ocean Technology (or NZOT). Details for NZOT remain unchanged.

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