Kelly Fawcett is a talented young woman about to embark on an engineering course at an American University. While on a Summer Camp at Wilmington University a few years back, Kelly had the opportunity to study and use an ROV. She remembered her dad (Kevin) commenting on the difficulty of doing mooring inspections in Niue during the tourist season. That gave her an idea to ask the NYC if an ROV would be useful to do inspections. “YES!”

In her final year at High School, she has undertaken the development of an ROV project with the Niue Yacht Club specifically in mind. She found some sponsors to assist in funding parts of the project. While out in San Francisco she meets with the “Trident’ developers and was able to convince them to include her in their BETA trials. She has been BETA testing ‘Trident’ locally in North Carolina before delivering it in person to NYC during an upcoming 2018 family visit to Niue.

An ROV is an underwater drone – mini-submarine – that is tethered to the surface, then via a wifi interface connects to an ‘iPad’ or similar device. The operator – aboard the NYC workboat – can direct this device to follow down each mooring line, sending a video stream back to the surface. This video survey is right down to the mooring attachment point and can be recorded for the future, and sometimes immediate, action by scuba divers to release the mooring for repairs. the Trident has planed max operating depth of 100m (328 feet), and dive time of 3-4 hours.

NYC’s current planning allows for frequent surface checks of the mooring field during the cruising season, and thanks to the NZ Government and Niue Tourism, who funded the 3.5m Mac boat in 2013, they have implemented these safety checks as planned. However, Niue’s peak cruising season coincides with the busy schedule for dive operators making seabed checks difficult (How many 35 meters inspections can dive operators fit in!). The ROV, however, will change all that.

Such surveys are critical to the safety of the mooring field, with lives and valuable yachts depending on the integrity of Niue’s moorings so close to the reef.

While all the moorings are taken out in October, cleaned, checked repaired or replaced where necessary, storms and carelessness can threaten the integrity of the moorings during day to day use.

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