Meet Shinkai, the world’s first superyacht designed around a submersible. When the owner of the 54.9-meter explorer placed his order with Feadship, he already had a new U-Boat Worx C-Researcher 3 waiting to be accommodated.

UDT 2021 takes place 15-17 December in Rostock, Germany Senior military personnel and industry experts will put the operational dynamic of ‘teamwork in the underwater domain’ front and centre when the global undersea defence community comes together at UDT 2021 in Rostock, Germany, in December.

CEbotiX, the UK’s national centre for operational development, workforce training and assurance of autonomous maritime technology, has officially launched.

Fugro’s Blue Essence, an offshore certified uncrewed surface vessel (USV) with an electric remotely operated vehicle (eROV), will begin its first project in the Netherlands. During operations the vessel is controlled from an onshore remote operations centre (ROC) via a satellite connection and will be used for the inspection of offshore assets, construction support services, and hydrographic and geophysical surveys.

The Drilling Company of 1972 A/S (“Maersk Drilling”) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to combine with Noble Corporation (“Noble”) in a primarily all-stock transaction. The combined company will be named Noble Corporation, and its shares will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Copenhagen. The transaction is targeted to close in mid-2022.

Boskalis announces that it has been awarded an inter-array cable installation contract by Ørsted for the German Borkum Riffgrund 3 and Gode Wind 3 offshore wind farms. The contract includes the transport, installation and burial of a combined total of 106 inter-array cables.

A breakthrough in leak risk detection at oil pipe flanges comes from research by the University of Houston using a Saab Seaeye Falcon robot as a development platform. Called SmartTouch, the solution involves integrating innovative robotic manipulator controls into the Falcon that provide multiple stress wave sensors for touch-based inspection of bolted joints, along with the latest structural health monitoring and inspection technologies. Video cameras and scanning sonars are also integrated into the system.

Fugro has secured two geotechnical site investigation contracts with Energinet for Denmark’s proposed Energy Island project. A global first, this purpose-built artificial island will be situated 80 km offshore in the North Sea and act as a hub connecting hundreds of surrounding wind turbines. Fugro will perform the preliminary geotechnical site investigation for the Energy Island and the adjacent offshore wind farm zone. The resulting Geo-data will be used to prepare an integrated geological and geotechnical soil model on which wind farm developers will base future tenders.

DEME Offshore US LLC, the world’s leading offshore wind farm contractor, today announced that it has secured a +$1.1 Billion Balance of Plant (BoP) contract for the construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project in a Consortium with Prysmian. The contract, with a total value amounting to +$1.9 Billion, has been awarded by Dominion Energy Virginia, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy Inc., to a consortium made up of DEME Group and Prysmian.

Argeo AS, a survey and inspection company focused on subsea data acquisition and visualisation, has selected Eelume’s autonomous ‘snake robot’ to assist in their operations in the first commercial contract to be signed for this innovative technology. Eelume’s advanced robotic solutions have been developed with the assistance of Kongsberg Maritime, who remain a majority shareholder in the venture.

Underwater obstacle avoidance technology from maritime defence technology companies, Sonardyne and Wavefront, has been successfully demonstrated on board an extra-large, uncrewed, underwater vehicle (XLUUV) built and operated by Plymouth-based MSubs Ltd.

Registration has just opened for Oceanology International 2022 (15 - 17 March 2022), marking the first time since 2018 that the Oi ocean technology community can come together and do business face to face.

In-water hull cleaning specialist HullWiper Ltd has formed a partnership with leading underwater and related services company World Subsea Services Pvt Ltd to bring sustainable and affordable hull cleaning solutions to vessels calling at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

ROVOP, a leading independent remotely operated vehicle (ROV) specialist, is on a strong growth trajectory after securing contracts valued at £25m in the last six months. The Aberdeen headquartered global business, which is marking its tenth anniversary this year, has won a diverse spread of work across offshore energy sectors in Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

Scottish firm FoundOcean has announced today that it has joined Venterra Group – a new wind energy services company, bringing together the expertise of three trusted names in offshore energy.

Saipem and TechnipFMC today announced the two companies have entered into a global commercial agreement that will allow them to identify projects worldwide that could be jointly executed for the benefit of clients.

Swansea’s renewable tidal lagoon ‘Blue Eden’ will create thousands of jobs during and after construction, placing Wales at the forefront of renewable energy innovation.

Greensea Systems, creator of OPENSEA®, the universal open architecture software platform for the marine industry, entered into a contract with Ocean Infinity to provide OPENSEA as the open architecture platform that the Armada Dynamic Payloads Control (DPC) will be built upon. During the contract, Greensea and Ocean Infinity will collaborate on creating advanced capabilities for robotic control and supervision for the Armada fleet’s payload. The DPC will provide a framework for supervising and controlling an ROV system, including the deck gear and launch and recovery system, by operators located at any of Ocean Infinity’s remote control centers. Through the OPENSEA API and OPENSEA SDK interfaces, Greensea, Ocean Infinity, or any partner can easily plug into the Armada DPC to add functionality to the fleet through the open architecture interfaces provided by OPENSEA.