GeoSwath 4 deck unit (photo: Kongsberg Maritime)

KONGSBERG has reported a strong summer of sales for its class-leading GeoSwath 4 shallow water multibeam system, an innovative echo sounder designed for diverse applications including contour mapping of lakes, rivers and estuaries and providing associated side scan imagery of the lake-bed conditions.

Garmin International (Olathe, KS, USA) has long recognised the benefits of using GeoSwath systems for its lake surveying program and upgraded four existing systems by replacing them with the new GeoSwath 4 this summer. The new transducers and control units together with all new software will allow faster and more accurate mapping of lakes and will allow Garmin to add more sites and higher accuracy charts to their existing recreational database.

“Garmin is committed to providing our customers with highly detailed fishing maps and we’re proud to partner with Kongsberg GeoAcoustics to do so,” says Jarrod Seymour, Garmin Director of Marine Engineering. “Garmin uses the GeoSwath 4 system to survey lakes and rivers for fishing maps, because it’s capable of very wide coverage, fits well on small boats and has the processing features we need to generate high-quality surveys efficiently.”

Bill Hone, Sales Manager of Kongsberg GeoAcoustics adds, “We worked closely with Garmin on the adoption of these new systems and believe that both parties have benefitted from the extensive system trials that were undertaken prior to purchase.”

In addition to Garmin’s four new GeoSwath 4 systems, a further five systems were sold to the prestigious Luxembourg dredging company Jan de Nul Group, another long term GeoSwath user with projects worldwide including in Saudia Arabia and Argentina. This sale takes Jan de Nul Group’s GeoSwath 4 total this year to six systems and KONGSBERG’s sales manager in The Netherlands, Ronald Keesmaat has not been surprised by the popularity of the new GeoSwath technology.

“GeoSwath 4 is the most advanced multibeam echo sounder in its class. It delivers unsurpassed productivity in shallow waters thanks to a very wide swath coverage, which can exceed 12x water depth, in addition to data coverage up to the water line. The system also enables reliable seabed classification and monitoring with real time side scan data, co-registered and geo-referenced and calibrated for repeatable results,” says Keesmaat.

Tags: KONGSBERG