New survey ships and systems for the Royal Navy

2 new survey ships, each carrying their own survey motorboat, are currently being constructed for the Royal Navy under the prime contractorship of Vosper Thornycroft (UK) Ltd. The new ships will replace the current RN Survey Vessels and will collect and process Hydrographic and Oceanographic data for the Royal Navy and UK Hydrographic Office. Kongsberg Simrad A/S has been selected as the supplier of a fully Integrated Survey Systems (ISS) for these new ships. Vosper Thornycroft (UK) Ltd will also support the vessels on the customer´s behalf for 25 years. This paper briefly describes the main operational requirements of the ships and their design before discussing more fully the ISS. The ISS comprises all the oceanographic and hydrographic sensors, as well as data acquisition and processing subsystems, which will allow the vessels to undertake their allocated tasks anywhere in the world. The vessels will also carry survey motor boats capable of extending survey operations into shallow water. Almost all the system and sub-system components have been built to Commercial-off-the-Shelf standards: benefiting both the procurement phase and through-life support period. Some components have been slightly modified by Kongsberg Simrad A/S to fulfil specific customer requirements. This paper highlights some of the new and innovative solutions that are in the process of being implemented as part of the ISS, as well as the integrated approach that has been taken to optimize the information gathering process and reduce the workload on the survey crew. In addition to the ship´s systems, training and postprocessing systems have also been procured