Foreshore Technology have just returned from Ireland after installing Dredge Master Plough for Fastnet Shipping.

Fastnet Sound is a versatile Multicat / Dive Platform equipped with an anchor handling / towing winch and Aft mounted A frame to enable plough dredging with an 11m Wide dredging Plough.

Foreshore Technology provided all of the necessary hardware and software to provide a complete plough monitoring system. This included a marine computer and monitor, a heavy duty winch sensor and a custom built interface box with pitch and roll sensors.

The software allows the plough dredging to be monitored in real time with the depth of the plough calculated from the winch sensor, pitch and roll and a calculated tide either by manual entry, tide table lookup, tide gauge or from RTK. Customisable reports can also be generated to provide an overview of the dredging work progress.

As well as plough monitoring, the software has also been linked up to a single beam sounder so that Fastnet can also use the multicat for performing surveys.