Marine data company Partrac is planning to deploy Metocean instrumentation at the North Ireland Sea Area (NISA) over a two-day period from tomorrow, Monday 17 January.

The survey campaign covers two sites in NISA off North Co Dublin, Meath and Louth. Site A instruments will remain deployed for 12 months, while Site B instruments will be deployed for six months.

Both sites will have an accompanying guard buoy and wave buoy. The guard buoys are Poseidon 1750 Ocean Buoys, which have a hull diameter of 1.75m and height above water level of 2.6m. Both will be yellow in colour and display St Andrew’s Cross day shapes.

They will be fitted with a radar reflector and a navigation light with a 3nm range, flashing sequence: Fl (5) Y 20s. The guard buoy deployed at Site A will also be fitted with AIS.

The wave buoys are yellow spherical buoys with a diameter of approximately 1.1m, fitted with a yellow navigation light with a 3nm range, flashing sequence: Fl (5) Y 20s.

A Damen Shoalbuster 2409 versatile multi-purpose and shallow draft tug named AMS Retriever (Callsign MEHI8) will carry out the work.

During operations the vessel will be restricted in its ability to manoeuvre. Other vessels are requested to leave a wide berth during the deployment operations. Radio transmissions will be conducted with other seafarers to notify them of the operations.

Coordinates of the deployments, a map of the array area and contact details are included in Marine Notice No 03 of 2022, attached below.