Ship Charter for Maintenance of Automatic Weather Stations, Indian Ocean, NW West Australia

The Bureau requires the use of a suitable and crewed ocean-going charter vessel to access three offshore monitoring stations located on islands in the NW of Western Australia. As part of the Australian Observations Network, the Bureau operates unmanned automatic weather stations (AWS) that monitor numerous meteorological parameters which are fed back to the mainland by means of satellite communications.The information forms part of the early warning network to alert meteorological staff of the formation of weather conditions that result in cyclones.Equipment must be maintained by the Bureau once per year. The Bureau requires the use of a crewed ocean-going charter vessel prior to the commencement of the tropical cyclone season.

The optimum charter period is between Late October - Mid December 2016.