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www.sea-technology.com March 2016 / st 39 verted into a multidisciplinary research vessel at a shipyard just north of Hamburg in Germany. A mere seven months later, myself and the team—made up of scientists, indepen- dent observers, crew, and technical staff on board the 82-m Falkor—were able to locate the last resting place of the Terra Nova. However, the expedition was not without its prob- lems and a number of challenges had to be resolved before we could get started. We had a whole host of diffculties to overcome before we were able to locate the wreck. For one, it was a challenge to convince our organization to commit the ship time to fnd the Terra Nova. We had also just spent a number of months preparing the systems for science, so it really was the Falkor's baptism by fre as a research vessel on the open ocean. All SOI's projects are driven by ground-breaking science selected by a science advisory group, and they usually incorporate an advanced technology theme, such as AUVs and ROVs. The institute funds sci- ence expeditions that are usually risky or of an exploratory nature— the sort of expeditions that govern- ment or taxpayer-funded institutes don't traditionally fund due to the high risk. The survey to fnd the Terra Nova was a secondary objective of our re- quired sonar tests. Luckily, the Falkor was transiting through the area where the wreck lay, and we had to test the ship's multibeam systems in the open ocean, so this gave us a great opportunity to add a secondary objective to our mul- tibeam shakedown. The research aspects of finding the Terra Nova were difficult. The documents from the rescue ship that came to the aid of the Terra Nova's crew had not included the actual position where Terra Nova sank. So, we had a large survey area of around 40 by 40 nautical mi. SOI had budgeted just 20 hr. for the sonar shakedown, and we needed to narrow down the area so that we could complete the survey and find the wreck in this time frame. Visit us - Booth #21 www.sbg-systems.com RV Falkor conducting the Terra Nova multibeam survey.