{"id":1135,"date":"2016-09-02T22:31:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T22:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2016-09-02T22:33:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T22:33:08","slug":"navys-smallest-ship-paves-way-for-maiden-voyage-of-its-largest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2016\/09\/02\/navys-smallest-ship-paves-way-for-maiden-voyage-of-its-largest\/","title":{"rendered":"NAVY\u2019S SMALLEST SHIP PAVES WAY FOR MAIDEN VOYAGE OF ITS LARGEST"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AIRCRAFT<\/a><\/p>\n

The smallest vessel in the Royal Navy is playing a key role in the maiden voyage by Britain\u2019s largest warship.<\/p>\n

Tiny launch HMS Gleaner \u2013 previously used to scan the wreck of the Mary Rose in the Solent \u2013 has spent weeks surveying every inch of the Forth estuary to ensure carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth leaves Rosyth dockyard without a hitch next spring.<\/p>\n

Nineteen times longer, 15 times wider and a staggering 3,000 times heavier, the new carrier dwarfed the small survey craft as she scanned the huge inner basin at Rosyth, where Queen Elizabeth is in the final stages of completion.<\/p>\n

The future flagship \u2013 the largest vessel ever to fly the White Ensign \u2013 is due to begin trials in the North Sea next spring ahead of her debut in her home base of Portsmouth.<\/p>\n

But with data on the Forth estuary 60 years old, Plymouth-based Gleaner and a specialist team of military surveyors were dispatched to Scotland to gather information on the tides, river bed and the three crossings \u2013 one rail, two road \u2013 to ensure the carrier\u2019s first departure runs smoothly.<\/p>\n

HMS Queen Elizabeth has already been fitted with a special main mast which can be lowered to allow the ship to safely pass beneath the bridges.<\/p>\n

But taking nothing to chance, Army surveyors from 42 Engineer Regiment (Geographic) from RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire used the latest theodolites to measure the bridge heights, while Gleaner\u2019s crew did the same using a new laser scanner.<\/p>\n

Beneath the surface, Gleaner\u2019s sonar looked down at the main channel into Rosyth dockyard which will need dredging before the carrier sails, and scanned the inner basin itself \u2013 11.8 metres deep and about 32 times the size of the pitch at Wembley.<\/p>\n

Despite the high-tech equipment crammed into Gleaner\u2019s tiny 15-metre hull, it\u2019s still taken the boat several months to gather the information needed \u2013 not least because the new Forth Road Bridge, due to open around the same time as the carrier sails, has affected the flow of the Forth and silt accumulating in the shipping channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of modern multibeam sonar and precise satellite positioning should make the survey straightforward, but the environment of an estuary rarely makes it that way,\u201d said the launch\u2019s Commanding Officer Lt Marc Taylor.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, we\u2019ve finished the job and shown how the Royal Navy\u2019s smallest ship can provide a vital service to its largest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth\u2019s first Commanding Officer Capt Jerry Kyd took the helm of Gleaner for some of the work inside the basin to see the accuracy of the data being collected for himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe excellent work carried out by Gleaner over the past few months is hugely important to me as Queen Elizabeth\u2019s captain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an absolute need to understand the hydrographical issues that will impact on the safe navigation of the carrier when we sail from Rosyth next spring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The smallest vessel in the Royal Navy is playing a key role in the maiden voyage by Britain\u2019s largest warship. Tiny launch HMS Gleaner \u2013 previously used to scan the wreck of the Mary Rose in the Solent \u2013 has spent weeks surveying every inch of the Forth estuary to ensure carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth… Continue reading NAVY\u2019S SMALLEST SHIP PAVES WAY FOR MAIDEN VOYAGE OF ITS LARGEST<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[946,45,947],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-watch","tag-hms-gleaner","tag-hms-queen-elizabeth","tag-rosyth-dockyard","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}