Remote Hydrographic Survey Boat • Turnkey shallow water single beam survey system • Ideal for hazardous survey locations • Easy to mobilize and operate • Survey at up to 600m (2000ft) range • Available ready for your existing survey equipment Oceanscience Z-Boats offer unmatched value and convenience for hydrographic surveyors conducting shallow water inshore bathymetric surveys.  Instead of mobilizing a manned boat for a small survey area, or completing time-consuming  administration procedures for a hazardous location survey, simply launch the Z-Boat and start surveying immediately.  The Z-Boat depth sounder and GPS are integrated with a radio modem data transmission system allowing the operator to view the boat track in real time on the shore laptop.  Not only can soundings be reviewed as the data is collected, but survey lines can be easily followed with help from the laptop display. The Z-Boat 1800 is available in two configurations, the Z-Boat 1800S and Z-Boat 1800.  The Z-Boat 1800S  is set up for survey grade centimeter-accurate single beam echo sounders and submeter or RTK GPS.  The affordable Z-Boat 1800 is supplied with all components pre-installed and ready go straight out of the box with meter-level GPS position accuracy and a 235kHz depth sounder.

Videos

Oil Field Industrial Water Pit Survey The Z-Boat 1800 is used to determine the volume of water contained in an industrial water holding pit. The survey is conducted from the air conditioned comfort of the truck cabin!     Hydrographic Surveying using the Z-Boat 1800 The Z-Boat 1800 is an ideal tool for small ponds or lakes where its draft of about 1ft (30cm) allows access to most of the water area. Remote Control Convenience Here is a close up view of the Z-Boat 1800. No messy wires or complicated setup procedures are needed. Just plug in the Bluetooth antenna and get to work!

The Z-Boat 1800S can be supplied with many of the small boat single beam depth sounders available on the market today.  Sounders such as the CEE Hydrosystems CEEDUCER PRO, Seafloor Systems SonarMite and SyQwest HydroBox are lightweight and provide survey-grade accuracy for shallow water surveys conducted with the Z-Boat 1800S.  Already have a shallow water sounder you want to use? No problem, we will simply configure the Z-Boat for your existing equipment.

If you do not need centimeter-level accuracy for your survey challenges, the entry-level Z-boat 1800 is supplied with a 235kHz Airmar Smart Transducer installed and ready to go.



GPS options from Hemisphere are available for GPS, GNSS, and RTK positioning solutions for the Z-Boat 1800S, with all required cabling and antenna mounts included in the system price.  Already have a positioning system you want to use? No problem, we can offer cabling solutions for practically every system available. Even uncommon systems can be accomodated with customized cable installations.

The NovAtel Smart V1G is used in the Z-Boat 1800 package.  With the potential of activating GNSS if required, this rugged smart antenna offers 1.2m accuracy DGPS positioning.



Conducting a survey using the Z-Boat is easy!  Existing hydrographic survey software such as HYPACK or HYDROpro can be used in just the same way as for a manned boat survey.  Planned lines can be followed by viewing the shore laptop display while operating the remote control system to keep the boat on track.  Position, heading, and depth soundings are transmitted to the laptop in real time by a radio modem, allowing full control over the boat even if out of visual range.  The integrated radio offers up to 600m (2,000ft) transmission range for real time telemetry to the shore, and the remote control system can effectively steer the boat at over 750m (2,450ft) range.  An on-board SD memory card ensures that the operator never has to worry about loss of data if the radio link is interrupted.

Z-Boat 1800S survey lines shown below were conducted by an inexperienced operator on a windy day using HYPACK to manage the survey.  The longest line is about 500m long, with the operator standing on the north shoreline next to the western boundary of the survey.



The Z-Boat 1800 is available with single and dual outdrive propulsion. For bathymetry in moderate and fast flowing rivers, the high speed Z-Boat 1800P offers over 5m/s (16fps) performance to keep position even in flood waters.



The Z-Boat 1800 is available with a basic mapping package to allow use of readily accessible Google Earth maps for graphical display of the vessel track during the survey.  This software will generate x, y, z data files for subsequent processing, generate contour maps and calculate survey area and volumes.  For accurate hydrographic surveys, the data output from the Z-Boat 1800S is fully compatible with survey software packages such as HYPACK and HYDROpro.

	PRODUCT INFORMATION SHEET - Z-Boat 1800