The most advanced anti-pollution vessel and her mission in Japan

"Ariake Kai" and "Yatsushiro Kai" are the famous inland seas in Japan for the richness in marine resources, and the fishery such as seaweed fish-raising industry and shellfish catch have been popular since early times. However, as the environmental condition in these seas is getting worse due to the debris and pollutant flowing into the seas from swollen rivers, the poor catch of fish and shellfish and the poor development of seaweeds have occurred in these regions recently. In this situation, the Kyushu Regional Development Bureau of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Japan have decided to construct and deploy an advanced antipollution vessel in order to contribute to the environmental protection and improvement in these regions. The advanced antipollution vessel "KAIKI" was designed by Shimonoseki Research and Engineering Office for Port and Airport of the Bureau and built at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Shimonoseki Shipyard & Machinery Works. The vessel is catamaran type and her main mission is to recover the floating debris and to investigate the water-quality, the sea bottom soil and current speed periodically. The main hull is made of aluminum alloy and the water jet propulsion system is adopted in order to cover the widespread observation points in shallow water. The debris recovery system is of skipper type with the detachable containers. In addition to the debris recovery system, the vessel is equipped with various kinds of observation equipments such as samplers, current meter and so on in order to investigate the marine-environmental characteristics. This paper is to introduce the features of this advanced antipollution vessel "KAIKI".