WO2011005115A1

WO2011005115A1 - Buoyant reef

Info

Publication number: WO2011005115A1
Application number: PCT/NO2010/000274
Authority: WO
Inventors: Sverre Meisingset
Original assignee: Runito As
Priority date: 2009-07-07
Filing date: 2010-07-07
Publication date: 2011-01-13
Also published as: NO20092576A1

Abstract

A floating reef comprising a group of pipes (110, 111) with different diameters that are attached to a frame (105). The reef is placed at a desired depth by means of anchorage (120) and buoyancy elements (150, 115). The reef forms an artificial habitat that attracts a plurality of marine species, and forms a local ecosystem in areas where it is impossible or impractical to make use of substrates placed on the bottom of the sea. The reef has a big surface and many cavities per unit of volume when it is assembled and submerged to a desired depth. The pipes have different diameters and can be nested during transportation. Flexible strips can be attached to the reef in order to increase the surface that accessible to seaweed.

Description

FLOATING REEF

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART

This invention regards a floating reef.

5

In many cases, modern marine farming plants are an environmental liability. Large amounts of fish in an area having a low rate of water exchange can lead to lack of oxygen. Uneaten feed and excrements can in a worst case drive an increase in the amount of algae, which makes the lack of oxygen even worse. In Norway,o there are entire fjords practically void of fish and marine animals because of this.

Areas near the shore are also heavily strained, and fish pens are from these and other reasons moved to deeper sea areas, still close to the shore, with , among other things, better access to oxygen. 5 It is still a problem that uneaten feed and excrements falling through the net in a fish pen is an excellent source of food for wild fish, e.g. coalfish. The wild fish will obviously stay near the fish pen, and does not get the motion it would get from natural foraging. The result is wild fish with deteriorated quality. This can be a problem for coastal fisheries, especially in areas wherein there are many and/oro large sea farms.

Marine farms are also big monocultures consuming other resources, and are adverse to biodiversity. 5 If an environment can be provided with a more diverse flora and fauna around the marine farms, a number of these and similar problems may be solved. For example, biodiversity may increase the natural feed production of the sea area, e.g. as supplementary and stabilizing feed for wild fish living around and eating surplus fodder from marine farms. Additionally, an environment having a largero number of species of fish, allows more fishing by providing new places for fishing for someone without advanced fishing tools. Hence, a first objective of the present invention is to provide an artificial habitat attracting organisms, several marine species and creates a local ecosystem in areas of the sea where use of natural or new substrates at the sea floor. Because mussels, sea shells, sea weed and kelp, requires surfaces on which to grow, the habitat should have as large a surface as possible for this purpose per unit of volume.

Because some fish and other marine species thrive in areas with an ample availability of cavities and other hiding places, the habitat should have as many cavities for this purpose, also per unit of volume.

In order for such a habitat to gain widespread use, it is also important that both the production and transportation costs are kept low. Hence, it would be

advantageous if the elements are easily manufactured, if the elements are easily assembled to a habitat having large surface area and many cavities, and if weight and volume are kept at a minimum during transport.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This problem is solved ny providing a reef, distinguished in that it comprises a plurality of pipes attached to each other.

The reef can be deployed at a desired depth by means of mooring to the seafloor and floating- or buoyancy elements. The reef should be deployed deep enough so that waves and wind present no big problem, and at the same time shallow enough to allow a lot of sunlight penetrating to it. The reef has, when mounted and lowered to the desired depth, a large surface and many cavities per unit of volume, and will thereby form an artificial habitat which may attract several marine species and form a local eco system I areas of the sea wherein it is impossible or impractical to use substrates deployed at the sea floor.

When the pipes have different diameters, they can be entered into each other during transport. This saves volume, and hence transport and storage costs. By using pipes of a suitable plastic material, weight is also saved. Reduced weight leads to further reduced costs of transportation. The pipes can be of a common large scale manufactured commercial quality, which may help reducing the costs of manufacture.

After mounting and disposal, pipes of different diameters appear tempting for several different species. By attaching flexible streamers, the surfaces on which e.g. seaweed and kelp can grow, be further increased in a simple manner without substantially increasing the costs of production and transportation.

Further embodiments appear in the accompanying claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be more fully explained in the following with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements, and in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic view of a floating reef;

Figure 2 is an end view of an embodiment;

Figure 3 shows a reef where buoyant elements are disposed in the reef;

Figure 4 shows an embodiment with flexible streamers; and

Figur 5 shows pipes of different diameters entered into each other and stacked.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Figure 1 is a schematic view of a floating reef according to the invention. The reef comprises an assembly of pipes 110 attached to each other, for instance by means of frames 105 and lowered to a depth below the surface 200 of the sea. In protected places where the reef is not exposed to severe surface waves or rollers, i.e. where the significant height of the waves is small, it may be advantageous to dispose the reef close to the surface such that as much sunlight as possible is able to penetrate to the reef, whereby the production of biomass may be increased. In other locations, it will be better to lower the reef to a depth of e.g. 5- 15 meters to avoid surface phenomena like wind and waves, while at the same time a sufficient amount of light penetrates to the reef.

In figure 1 , attachment of the pipes is illustrated by two frames 105 directed lateral to the longitudinal axis of the pipes. The frames are attached to a mooring line 120, which in turn is anchored to the seafloor (not shown). The mooring is significantly simplified if the reef is deployed e.g. 2x deeper than the significant wave height at the location, so that one does not need to take special precautions to prvent the buoyant part from oscillating vertically and picking up wave

frequencies near the resonant frequency of the system.

The reef can be kept afloat by a buoy 150 and/or air filled pipes 115, as shown in figure 3. The buoy 150 is intended to generally illustrate floating or buoyancy elements external to the reef. As the buoy 150 is optional (can be replaced by floating elements such as the pipes 115 in figure 3), both the buoy 150 and its attachment is shown by dotted lines in figure 1.

Figure 2 shows an embodiment of a reef according to the invention viewed from the end of cylindrical pipes 110, 111. The pipes are clamped in a rectangular frame 105 as shown in figure 1 , and the pipe 111 has a smaller diameter than the diameter of pipe 110. Thereby, pipe 111 can be entered into pipe 1110 during transport as shown in figure 5. It also appears from figure 2 that the space between the pipes will provide good hiding places end good possibilities for escape, and hence be attractive to some species. The surface of the pipes 110, 111 will also provide attachment for e.g. sea weed, kelp, sea shells and other organisms needed in a marine ecosystem.

Figure 3 shows an embodiment wherein two pipes 115 are sealed at their ends. When a volume of air is trapped in this manner, the pipes 115 will provide buoyancy. This buoyancy can fully or in part replace the buoyancy provided by the buoy(s) 150 shown in figure 1. Figure 4 illustrates an embodiment with flexible streamers 140. For simplicity, only one pipe 110 with two streamers 140 is shown, but it is of course possible to provide flexible streamers on pipes having different diameters, e.g. pipe 111 of figure 2, and it is trivial to dispose as many streamers as desirable along the pipes. These streamers 140 can increase the surface available for sea weed, kelp etc, without significantly increasing weight, volume or production costs.

The reef can be provided with a locking sleeve (not shown) around the mooring line. When the reef is about to be deployed, weight is provided from a vessel. The weight presses the reef downwards until the desired depth is reached. Here, the locking sleeve is locked to the mooring line. When the reef is to be raised at a later time, the locking sleeve is released end the reef floats by its own buoyancy.

Claims

1. Floating reef comprising a plurality of pipes (110, 111) having different diameters, characterized in that the pipes (110, 111) are configured to being entered into each other during transport and to be attached to a frame (105) when the reef is in use.

2. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized in that it comprises flexible streamers (140).

3. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized in that floating members (115) are disposed within the reef.

4. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized in that floating members (105) are disposed external to the reef.

5. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized by a mooring line (120) adapted to dispose the reef in a depth below significant wave height.

6. Floating reef according to claim 6, characterized in that the depth is 2 times the significant wave height or more below the surface of the sea.

7. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized by a mooring line (120) adapted to dispose the reef at depth with sufficient sunlight.

8. Floating reef according to claim 1 , characterized by a lockin sleeve disposed around the mooring line (120).

9. Method for deployment of a floating reef, characterized by the steps of: - providing a plurality of pipes that may be entered into each other during transport,

- attaching the pipes to a frame to form a floating reef, and

- lowering the reef to a desired depth.

10. Method according to claim 9, wherein the step of lowering the reef comprises supplying weight from a vessel, and that the method further comprises attaching the reef to a mooring line (120) by means of a locking sleeve (not shown).