Christening ceremony for Van Oord’s new USV

Van Oord, Dutch marine contractor focused on dredging and marine construction, celebrated the christening ceremonies of an unmanned survey vessel, VO:X Barentsz, and of two new hybrid water injection dredgers, Rijn and Rhône. The event took place at the Van Oord head office jetty in Rotterdam.

VO:X Barentsz, Van Oord’s fifth unmanned autonomous survey vessel (USV) was christened by Ms Lucienne van Leeuwen-Koper. She is the wife of Michel Koper, Director Survey at Van Oord.

Van Oord’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 DUS v5750 offshore class USV and also an evolution of the four other USVs (DUS v2500), building upon the same hardware and software USV platform system and expanding this vessel with new technologies and more functionalities for offshore operations.

Unmanned survey vessels enable Van Oord 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. With this advanced and specialised technology, we can help customers achieve refined results and raise the bar for sustainable and safe operations.

?? Source: Van Oord, DEMCON Unmanned Systems