Time after time the search has been made, and time after time, they've all come back empty handed. However this week, Kongsberg Maritime Ltd, the UK division of Kongsberg Maritime, has achieved the unimaginable and uncovered the elusive Nessie.
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Ove Ronny HaraldsenGroup Communication Manager
That is, the long lost model of Nessie which was used during filming of 1970’s “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”. The discovery was made during a survey of Loch Ness, led by Kongsberg Maritime Ltd and supported by The Loch Ness Project and VisitScotland.
Operation Groundtruth is the first survey of its kind in Scotland, making use of Kongsberg Maritime Ltd’s recently-launched MUNIN AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). The highly accurate underwater vehicle features groundbreaking sonar and camera equipment, which provide the ability to map vast areas up to a depth of 1,500m at incredibly high resolution.
As Loch Ness has a reputation of being incredibly difficult to survey, the state-of-the-art MUNIN will undoubtedly reveal brand new information regarding the Loch. Uncovering the 46 year old Nessie model was just the beginning…
Craig Wallace, senior subsea applications engineer at Kongsberg Maritime Ltd is excited to be back at a favourite location: “Kongsberg Maritime Ltd began surveying Loch Ness with some of the world’s first multibeam sonar back in 1987. Over the years, the company has returned many times, bringing the latest technology to uncover the Loch’s mysteries.
“We expect to uncover new information from the Loch during this survey, as MUNIN is the most advanced low logistics AUV on the market and is the first of the next generation AUVs from Kongsberg Maritime. Merging the cutting edge technology from the commercial sector whilst maintaining the robust reliability from the military market, the vehicle is providing insight to the Loch’s depths as never before imagined. Finding Nessie was, of course, an unexpected bonus!”
The MUNIN AUV, which was recently added to Kongsberg Maritime Ltd’s Aberdeen-based rental pool, offers significant benefits in terms of low utilisation costs, high reliability, an excellent standard of data quality and easy deployment.
SECOND TRY BY KONGSBERG MARITIME
The eyes of the world turned to Loch Ness in Scotland also in 1992. Research vessel MS Simrad was recruited to search for the fabled sea monster which, according to eye witnesses, had been hiding for centuries in the deep Scottish loch. After three weeks of trawling the loch waters, the 1,300 year-old mystery remained unsolved.
However, onboard MS Simrad, the crew registered an object which scientists could not explain. “For two minutes, we had sonar contact with something which we cannot explain,” confirmed Bjørn Høyum Larsen at Simrad’s office in Aberdeen to Aftenposten newspaper.