New instrument panel and steering

side scan sonar Images from low resolution 220khz home made fish.

Here is an image taken using the sidescan sonar, now fully functional for the first time!!

The software has saved the images a little bright so work is needed but you can clearly see the wreck of the blazer shortly followed by the serica along the right hand side from centre to bottom left.

HMS Blazer was an armaments tug of roughly 280 tons. She sank on the 10 November 1918 close inshore near the Conger ledgers just off the garisson walls on St Mary's the Isles of Scilly. She is mostly broken up but still lies in a ship like shape with her bows whole and her hull showing up on the sonar as boat shaped.

The Steam ship Serica foundered on Serica rock just off the Steval off the Garisson walls St Mary's, Isles of Scilly on the 24 November 1893. She had just avoided sinking and was taking shelter in the roads.

We are now viewing several weeks worth of data taken of the whole of Scilly and will return with a high resolution 700kHz version of the same fish design shortly. Inspiration for the fish came from Sture Hultqvist, now not with us but his tales of engineering and sonar hunting lead me to build my own.

The side scan sonar is towed behind the boat and looks out each side to left and right. It misses directly under the boat because of this but gives an image in the same way light does with a sundial giving a shadow except using accoustics. The lower th efish th ebigger the shadow and the brighter the reflections. The higher the frequency the higher the detail so long as the fish is long enough. short arrays do not always give high detail.

CLICK FOR BIGGER IMAGES

SS SERICA


HMS BLAZER

Back now

Im back for now to edit films, repair sonar equipment and earn some money.
Ill keep this site up to date with news of the next trip or expediton when I can and post some photos and videos in due course.
Thanks for looking
Robin