Our Vessels:
In order to conduct these investigations on the water four vessels were provided; RV Callista, RV Falcon Spirit, RV Xplorer and Winnie the Pooh. RV Callista is a large research catamaran used in the offshore data collection. On board is equipment such as a CTD, ADCP, Zooplankton nets and a wet lab for immediate analysis on board.
The University of Plymouth provided the RV Falcon Spirit, it is also a large catamaran with the same equipment as on board the Callista. This boat is slightly smaller than the Callista, therefore was suited for sampling up the River Tamar.
RV Calista
RV Falcon Spirit
Winnie the Pooh
The RV Xplorer is another research catamaran sourced from Falmouth, it has very little on-board equipment apart from a deployment crane, therefore it was used for a geophysical survey. The geophysical survey required a side scan sonar fish to be deployed and towed along a transect, making the RV Explorer suitable for this investigation.
RV Xplorer
Winnie the Pooh is a small fishing vessel sourced from Falmouth, which was used to travel up the River Tamar into shallow water, in order to study the full profile of the River Tamar. Unfortunately, as it is a fishing vessel it had no scientific equipment on-board, therefore only surface water samples could be collected on-board and placed in bottles, which were then taken back to the labs and analysed at the University of Plymouth Marine Station.