iSURVEY Help Identify North Sea Shipwreck

During a recent offshore power cable cut and seal project on the Olympic Taurus, iSURVEY were part of the team tasked with identifying a ship wreck, found 3 years previously during the routine inspection of the Skagerrak power cable.

Photo credit: iSURVEY / Statnett

The wreck lies thirteen nautical miles from Kristiansand in Southern Norway, and was investigated using an ROV-mounted multi-beam echosounder. Following the survey, it was determined that the wreck was that of the long-lost German warship Karlsruhe, famous for leading the assault on Kristiansand during the invasion of Norway in 1940. Until this discovery, Karlsruhe had remained the last World War Two German warship, whose whereabouts were unknown.

During the project, iSURVEY's Party Chief Kjetil Høisæth, was responsible for processing the collected data, which helped uncover the identity of the wreck. When asked about the experience, Kjetil said:

“Processing the data was exciting. We did several survey lines and I picked two that best covered the vessel. I spent some extra time processing it to make sure it looked as good as possible and I’m really pleased with the outcome”.

Photo credit: iSURVEY / Statnett

Since the conclusion of the project, the story has been picked up by the international media, with Reuters creating a compilation of the videos that were taken on discovery of the wreck. You can view that video below:

Video credit: Statnett / Reuters

You can also read more about the project on the Statnett website and through NRK, using the following links:

• Statnett: Unique discovery on the seabed
• NRK (in Norwegian): Long Lost Wreck found meters from power cable