Gardline’s coastal survey vessel the George D, named after the founder of the company, George Darling was lifted from the dock in Great Yarmouth early Tuesday morning and loaded onto the mighty 7002 tonne MV Pangini for its transportation to Douala, the largest port and city in Cameroon.
The George D is one of Gardline’s fleet of coastal vessels and was built in 1991. It will be in Cameroon to conduct metocean studies for at least 12 months, with the results of these studies used to help design a new Liquefied Natural Gas plant near Kribi.
The vessel will be deploying three specialised moorings each housing a variety of scientific instruments recording information on waves, currents and sediments in the water. All instruments will be transmitting data in real-time over satellite to Gardline’s UK data centre. Onshore, further instruments including a 10m metmast and a laser Doppler 200m wind profiler (LIDAR) will be housed in a compound currently under construction. The George D will also be used to service the offshore instruments every three months’.
Michael Martins, Gardline’s Environmental Business Development Manager said the lifting of the George D onto the Pangini was a magnificent sight and the start of its journey where the fully equipped coastal vessel will soon start work for our client, the French company GDF Suez and their local Cameroon partner SNH.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , June 27, 2012; Image: Gardline