Field survey
From the desk to the seabed
A field survey takes a wreck from an assessment built on records to one built on what is there. This is the method, in the order we run it.
Survey boat and ROV, Simpson Harbour, October 2026
Step 1
Desk assessment
Every survey starts in the platform. The assessed inventory tells us which wrecks in a harbour or coastline carry the highest risk and the thinnest evidence, and the records behind each one tell us what to expect: vessel type, how it sank, what it carried, what the last person to see it reported.
From that we build a target list, a dive plan within recreational and technical limits, and the questions each wreck needs answered.
Step 2
Drone survey
Aerial passes map the working area before anything goes in the water: anchorages, shipping lanes, shoreline access, visible sheens and the state of the surface over each target.
The imagery also gives the survey report its context, so a reader who has never been to the harbour can see what the findings refer to.
Step 3
Sonar survey
Sonar transects locate each target and measure it: the outline and length of a wreck on the seabed, its profile and how high it stands. Together they confirm whether a target is where the record says, whether it is one vessel or several, and how it lies.
Measured positions and dimensions go straight into the platform, replacing positions inherited from archives.
Step 4
ROV inspection
On targets beyond comfortable diving depth, or where the risk to a diver is too high, a remotely operated vehicle does the looking. It records continuous video of hull, deck and openings, and can hold position on a feature for as long as the survey needs.
The footage is timestamped against the sonar record so every observation can be placed on the wreck.
Step 5
Diver inspection
Where depth and conditions allow, divers inspect the wreck at close range: the state of plating, visible corrosion and breaches, exposed cargo or ordnance, marine growth and any sign of release.
Divers never enter the structure, touch ordnance or disturb the wreck. Many of these vessels are war graves, and the method is built around leaving them as they are.
Step 6
Reporting
The survey report brings the evidence together for each target: measured position and dimensions, observed condition, imagery and the sonar record, written so that the authority responsible for the water can act on it.
The same findings update each wreck's assessment in the platform, component by component, with the survey recorded as the source.
Why it matters
Observed condition replaces inferred condition
Until a wreck is surveyed, its assessment rests on inference: what vessels of that type carried, how long steel lasts at that depth and temperature, what the sinking is likely to have done to the hull. The platform states that plainly and marks every unsurveyed wreck down for it.
A survey replaces that inference one component at a time. A hull seen intact brings the condition assessment down. A breach, exposed ordnance or a sheen brings it up. Either way the number is now grounded in what someone saw, and the report shows which survey it came from.
That is the whole purpose of a field deployment: not to add to the record, but to replace the weakest parts of it.
The four dimensions of an assessmentRequest a survey in your waters
Coastal states and port authorities can ask for a field survey of the highest-risk wrecks in their waters, scoped from the platform's assessment and conducted under formal agreement.