Summary
The EU funded Eurofleets 2 project (http://www.eurofleets.eu) (EF2) concerns the European fleet of Research Vessels and aims at developing a common strategy and establishing a European fleets infrastructure. The project includes activities such as structuring and integrating, on a European scale the way that research vessels are operated and their interoperability capacities, also promoting standardized tools for data management. In addition it includes R&D activities on developing guidelines for operating and designing regional research vessels (RRV’s).
RRV’s play a crucial role in supporting science along the European coasts. There is strong demand in terms of preservation of the marine environment, protection of the variety of ecosystems, implementation of new energy devises in coastal and offshore areas, etc. This requires a modern fleet in terms of its conception and design, able to provide the capability for multipurpose and interoperability of sea operations.
Design and development of RRV’s is a complicated, time consuming and expensive exercise, and it should be done by establishing regular exchanges/contacts between qualified ship design companies, experienced ship yards, equipment manufacturers, scientific staff with long experience from marine research cruises and experienced RRV operators in order to build on ‘best practice’ from existing RRV’s together with the latest developments in ship design and scientific equipment.
In the preceding 3 years the Eurofleets 2 R&D activities have made substantial progress and results have been achieved, in particular in the field of:
- Noise and vibration reduction
- Bubble sweep-down avoidance
- Work deck installations
These results have provided input for draft specifications and guidelines for RRV’s and innovative basic designs for RRV’s.
During the International Research Ship Operators 2016 meeting (IRSO 2016) (10 – 13 October 2016) an Eurofleets 2 Workshop and Industry Exhibition was organised to share and discuss the results achieved so far between Eurofleets researchers, RV operators (members of IRSO) and industry representatives, in particular ship designers and ship yards.
IRSO is a group of research ship operators representing 49 organisations from 30 countries who manage over 100 of the world’s leading marine scientific research vessels.
During the Workshop an overview was given of the results by means of presentations, followed by an active dialogue aimed at refining and strengthening results and conclusions as well as at establishing contacts for further exchanges. The Workshop was joined by 40 participants, consisting of 27 project researchers and RV operators (members of IRSO) and 13 industry representatives of shipyard, ship designers and others with expertise in Research Vessels.
The Workshop was followed by an Industry Exhibition whereby participants from research and industry highlighted their activities and products for RRV’s by means of posters. This gave also opportunity for further dialogues between participants, following the Workshop presentations and discussions.
Only a selected group of industry representatives has been invited to join the Eurofleets 2 Workshop and Industry Exhibition and also to participate in the following days of the IRSO meeting. For that purpose an inventory has been prepared of ship designers and ship yards in Europe with special focus and experience with research vessels. From this inventory a shortlist of companies was invited.
Overall it can be concluded that the event was very successful nd has lived up to the expectations. There was a good audience in quantity (40) and quality in a mix of researchers, ship operators and industry representatives. The presented EuroFleets 2 results were well received and there was a lively discussion on several topics. Also contacts have been made between several participants for possible follow-on exchanges. Also many thanks to CNR that made perfect arrangements for the hosting of the event and related logistics.
Download Relevant Project Deliverables
Guidelines and recommendations for ship design on noise and vibration reduction
Guidelines and recommendations for ship design on work deck installations