We've got some systems that are on the hull and some systems that are on two
drop keels. So we've got, for example, multi-beam instruments that measure the seabed elevation
along a swath. Then we've got sub-bottom profilers. That's very useful to measure the different
layers of the seabed. And then we've got all the bio-acoustic instruments such as the EK80
that measures the presence of fish in the water; fish, krill, phytoplankton in the whole water column.
This ship has two drop keels that allows you to
see below the bubble layers that big waves can make as you're going across the ocean.
So that allows you to be out in bigger waves, still able to do your acoustics.
Silent R is silent 'R' for research so it's a silent vessel that's good for doing
scientific research in. Silent gives you a whole range of scientific capabilities. If
you're silent you can hear really well and you can hear what's out there. The other thing is
if you're silent you can be stealthy, so that means that the fish don't go "what's that?" and
they don't know you're there, so they keep on doing what they're doing and you don't affect them.
It's a big challenge to make an icebreaker Silent R.
Icebreakers have to be immensely powerful to break ice and that doesn't lend itself to
being silent usually. We've got a hybrid drive system that allows us to have
silent electric drive when we're doing scientific research.
And when we need to go and break through the ice we can connect up some big
diesel direct drive engines that connect straight through to the shaft
and put an immense amount of power into the water that you need to break ice.
All the machinery in both engine rooms is all resilient mounted, flexi-mounted.
The idea behind that is to reduce the vibration and the noise for all the scientific equipment.
So part of the propulsion system is it's based around the scientific equipment on
the vessel as well, and that's what makes this vessel pretty special.