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LOCAL Wednesday 4 december 2019
Navy ship Snellius ready

with hydrographic tasks

in the Caribbean

SAVANETA — Last week graphic survey vessel. The
the hydrographic sur- ship has advanced sonar
vey vessel Zr. Ms. Snellius equipment with which the
started the ocean cross- seabed can be mapped.
ing from the Caribbean In this way, nautical charts
to home port Den Helder. can be made and coastal
The hydrographic survey areas can be mapped. The
vessel has checked the navy thus contributes to
current sea charts for the navigating safely through
past three months. This is the waters of the Dutch
done using a sonar. With kingdom.q
that, the seabed around
the Caribbean islands has
been mapped out again.
In addition, the crew of the
Snellius used equipment to
detect potentially danger-
ous objects on the seabed
for shipping. The ship and
her crew are expected to
be back in the Netherlands
for Christmas.

The majority of the voy-
age has sailed the Snel-
lius around Sint Maarten,
Sint Eustatius, Saba and
the Saba Bank. In the last
weeks of her journey, the
ship made recordings at
Aruba, Curacao and Bo-
naire. The work in this area
was mainly focused on the
ports and the associated
approach routes for ships.

In addition to recording
tasks, the Snellius - together
with Zr. Ms. Johan de Witt
- also provided emergen-
cy relief in the Bahamas
in September after this is-
land was hit by Hurricane
Dorian. From the Snellius,
the approach routes of the
various ports in the Baha-
mas have been explored
for the Johan de Witt land-
ing craft.

Zr. Ms. Snellius is a hydro-