Phew! What a scorcher!

September 13^th was the hottest day on record for over a century where in Kent they scorched at 34.4C so Storm sent a three man team to Guernsey to cool off!!

The task was to complete a bathymetric survey of six freshwater storage quarries for Guernsey Water.[nbsp] This will ultimately be used in reviewing how effective current procedures are at managing the potable water source available on Guernsey.

One temporary GNSS base station was established on site for each reservoir, providing real time corrections to a roving GNSS unit.[nbsp] Attached to the boat was an Ohmex Sonarmite echo sounder transducer, mounted on a pole 1.395m below the Leica GS14 GNSS antenna.[nbsp] Depths and quality readings were transmitted back to the data collector for each sounding at 5m intervals and stored on a Leica CS14 controller. [nbsp]Top water level was easily defined by high water marks on the quarry walls and surveyed using the reflector less survey method from a Leica TS15 R1000 total station.

The vast majority of sounding values exceeded the threshold of ‘satisfactory quality’ for both reservoirs, with results being slightly higher for the D-shaped reservoir due to its shallower nature and firmer bed. [nbsp]Hard bed levels were extracted from the sub-bottom profiler data through extensive analysis.

The Guy Martin “Speed” Team called upon Mike again to help with his next world record breaking antic.[nbsp] This time it was to measure “The Human Powered Boat World Speed Record”. [nbsp]It was quite a tricky measuring assignment as not only was the average speed of the craft required, but also the wind speed and current speed. [nbsp]It was double trouble for Mike as the planned venue was scrapped after the first day of “runs” because of a sudden upturn of algae which hampered the vessel speed, this meant a new course and measuring system had to be planned early the next morning at a new venue 60 miles away! [nbsp]Senior Surveyor Jon Teall helped Mike get the job done in plenty of time for the days record attempts. [nbsp]Not such a great day for Guy Martin as he couldn’t quite get the boats he was pedalling to hydroplane, which he needed to do to reduce the drag in the water and get the boat up to top speed. [nbsp]It looked like Mike and Jon had a fun time and were spotted on Channel 4 a few times in the final production, all good PR for the profession of surveying!

On an Achilles RISQS note……. Hurrah for Storm, we were awarded 5 stars at our Audit which is the highest score to have. [nbsp]After a few nervous nights sleep Britt finally achieved her dream of a full house of 5! [nbsp]Achilles RISQS is a mandatory requirement for companies to work on the railway. [nbsp]This runs upsides our Achilles UVDB which we also have top marks, well done all!