The government has granted resources to start building a new research vessel for NGU to a total cost of NOK 60 million. The total cost includes, amongst other things, hydroacoustic equipment/marine geology/geophysics, project costs, building inspection, etc.

NGU is the owner of the delivery and depends on good progress in the project. The aim is that the vessel is put into operations at the latest in spring 2022. The vessel must be handed over in Trondheim ready for operation with all systems and all equipment operative.

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The vessel will be used by the contracting authority for research and geological mapping of the sea bed in the coastal zone, mainly within the area covered by the Planning and Building Act. The vessel will also be used by other institutions for, e.g., geophysics, hydrographic, oceangraphic, and biological mapping.

The vessel must be equipped with scientific equipment for mapping the sea bed. This includes multi-beam echo sounder, sediment echo sounder, video rig with underwater camera, and different sample taking equipment such as grab, multicorer, box scorer and gravitational sample taker.

Other equipment can also be operated, such as CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth), ROV (remotely operated vehicle), AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle), USV (unmanned surface vehicle), gravimeter (for gravity measuring), Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), etc. The vessel does not need to be equipped for heavy towing operations, but it could occasionally be used for light bottom scraping.

The vessel will be staffed by a captain, a technical manager (engine manager), a geologist with responsibility for data acquisition/sample taking (lookout), and, in addition, an option for an extra researcher on board, for example, for biological mapping.

It must be possible to have the vessel in continual operation for periods of several months. It ought to be possible to take extra passengers on day trips. The maximum number of persons on board will be 10, of which 3 are crew.

Tenderers must submit a requirements specification in accordance with the SFI system and a general arrangement (GA) as part of their tender.

The attached rough draft 'GA', see annex 8.5, is only meant to be an illustration of one possible functional solution. This is not in accordance with the functional requirements and must not, therefore, be used for other purposes than information on parts of the preparatory work for this specification.