Alcock Ashdown survey catamaran

Alcock Ashdown Survey Catamarans are a series of six 500 ton steel hull/aluminium superstructure Hydrographic Survey Catamarans being built by Alcock Ashdown (Gujarat) Ltd at its Bhavnagar shipyard for the Indian Navy. The ships are designed by an Australian naval architecture firm Sea Transport Solutions, which is based on Queensland's Gold Coast.

Description
The ships are intended to undertake coastal hydrographic survey, required for production of nautical charts and publications aimed at improving navigation through waters closer to coasts. The ships are also capable of limited coastal defence role in an emergency, limited search and rescue and limited ocean research. The ships are equipped with standard hydrographic survey equipment such as advanced electronic positioning system, multi-beam swath sounding systems and sub-bottom profiler. The ships also carry two survey motor boats along with Kongsberg Maritime's Hugin 1000 Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for closer investigations.

The Catamarans are propelled by four Cummins engines as well as two bow thrusters. The entire propulsion, navigational and power management packages of the vessels are integrated in a single state-of-art integrated platform management system. The ships have ergonomic accommodation for the six officers and 44 sailors.

Construction
Alcock Ashdown (Gujarat) Ltd was awarded this contract, worth inr 8000000000 on 28 December 2006 through open competitive bidding, beating players like Larsen & Toubro, ABG Shipyard and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers. As per original term of contract, the first vessel was to be delivered by 6 April 2009, while the remaining five vessels were to be delivered within a year from 6 July 2009. But this was rescheduled, the revised delivery period of vessels is from September 2011 to March 2013.