Offshore UXO Survey & Clearance: ScanFish ROTV Pilot to EOD Diver

On a planned interconnector through the German Bight, survey teams found more than 150 live items of unexploded ordnance sitting on the cable route. Divers and ROV crews classified the targets. Charge buoys went down only after naval clearance. Every shot needed a 500-metre exclusion zone, and the whole spread stopped when the tide was wrong. That is offshore UXO work: not a movie, a sequence.

This guide splits the job the way contractors hire it. Ladder one is geophysical: magnetometer, side-scan, and the ScanFish ROTV pilot who flies the towfish a few metres off the seabed. Ladder two is clearance: UXO technician, clearance diver, lead EOD. Same campaign. Different tickets. Mixing them on a CV is how good surveyors get rejected from dive spreads — and how divers get rejected from ScanFish seats.

Two Ladders, One Cable Route

A wind export cable or an interconnector does not “have a UXO guy.” It has a chain.

ScanFish Pilot — The ROTV Seat People Actually Search

ScanFish is EIVA’s remotely operated towed vehicle (ROTV). It is not a free-swimming work-class ROV and it is not a “Scan Fish” brand with a space — recruiters filter on ScanFish and Scanfish. The vehicle is towed, actively steered, and held at a set height above the seabed so the sensors stay inside their detection range. Magnetometers only see a few metres. Fly too high and the bomb disappears into noise.

EIVA’s own UXO setups, used across European wind sites, look like this:

Follow-seabed mode uses an altimeter. Typical flying height on workable terrain is about 3–4 m, sometimes less. The pilot’s job is launch and recovery, keeping the fish inside the corridor, watching altitude, cable, and weather, and not wrecking a non-magnetic frame on a sand wave. The online surveyor next to you runs the navigation — usually the EIVA NaviSuite / NaviPac world. If you cannot say which, you have not done the seat.

A pattern that stuck in the European market: on East Anglia ONE, Bibby HydroMap towed two ScanFish ROTVs in parallel from one A-frame, with high-resolution EdgeTech side-scan, instead of the usual single fish. Dual-fish is how big wind sites buy days back. Ads still say “ScanFish pilot” for UK, Denmark, Germany, and short coastal jobs such as Normandy UXO surveys.

What a ScanFish watch actually is

• Deck check, umbilical, and flotation before the first line
• Launch through the A-frame or crane with the deck lead — this is where people get hurt
• Fly the line at the agreed height and speed; call off-track early
• Watch mag noise, altimeter dropouts, and turns that smear the gradiometer
• Recover cleanly. A smashed G-882 ends the hitch faster than a bad CV
• Hand the lines to the data people the same shift — not “tomorrow”

The Sensors the Ads Name

UXO data analysts — often on day rates below the diver, and not required to dive — pick through that pile: ferrous anomaly versus torpedo versus junk. If your background is geophysics or GIS, this is the door. If your background is the gym and a recreational scuba card, it is not.

Clearance Diver and Lead EOD — The Other Seat

Once the target list exists, someone has to look at the iron. Campaigns split by depth and rules:

• ROV-led identification in deeper or higher-current water
• Clearance diver when the item must be seen, moved, or prepared by hand
• Military or authorised civilian EOD for the shot itself — not “the ScanFish guy who watched a video”

A clearance diver on these jobs classifies risk, photographs, and supports relocation, burial, or a controlled detonation. The supervisor owns the exclusion zone, the radio net, and the conversation with the naval observer. Background that actually clears screening: military EOD, or a real commercial dive ticket (IMCA-recognised air diver where the method is diver-based) plus marine UXO procedures. A recreational card plus a magnetometer course is not a clearance diver.

Diving path context, separate from this UXO niche: Commercial Diver Career Path. Acoustic exclusion during detonations often pulls in MMO / PAM — different people, same weather window.

What a Real Clearance Day Looks Like

German Bight, cable route, 150-plus live items. The sequence that kept people alive:

1. Geophysical list — mag and sonar — before anyone splashes
2. ROV or diver identification, photos, risk category
3. Charge plan agreed with local naval authorities
4. 500 m exclusion, all other operations stopped
5. Tide window. If the water is wrong, you wait. Heroics are how exclusion zones fail

On Dogger Bank-scale UK wind UXO scopes, Party Chiefs have run ROV inspection of hundreds of targets (400-plus on one published campaign pattern), UK MOD-style reporting, and the daily diplomacy between the developer and naval observers. Accuracy is the product. So is not annoying the navy.

Tickets — Europe Is Not One Rulebook

There is no honest “€800 ScanFish licence” you can buy on a Tuesday and fly on Wednesday. Pilots are hired for logged fish time. Dutch OOO courses are real and regulated; published public price lists are rare because employers book them. Budget the medical, HUET or GWO, and the flight — same as every other offshore seat.

Day Rates — Analyst, Diver, Lead

The diver number is higher because the consequence is final. The analyst number is how a geophysicist stays offshore without a helmet. Neither rate survives a sloppy target plot.

Where the Bombs and the Budgets Are

UK North Sea and east coast

Dogger Bank, East Anglia, and the cable corridors into them are the ScanFish classroom. Dual-ROTV mag, SSS, then ROV identification, then MOD-facing reports. English, OEUK or equivalent medical, and a CV that names the fish.

German Bight and the Baltic

WWII density is not a slogan. Interconnectors and German offshore wind still trip live items. Naval observers, exclusion zones, and tide windows are the job. German and Dutch language helps on the permit side; the console is still often English.

Netherlands

Coastal and soil detection sits under CS-OOO. Offshore wind export work borrows the same people and then adds marine survey. If you want a Dutch client, learn the certificate levels instead of collecting random EOD PDFs.

France — Channel and Normandy

Short, intense UXO survey calls (ScanFish pilot adverts show up for Normandy windows measured in days, not seasons). Good sea time if you already have the fish. A poor place to learn launch and recovery from zero.

Taiwan and other new wind

Same method, different wreck history. Clients still ask for European UXO CVs because the North Sea already made the mistakes. Typhoon season punishes a fish flown too heavy.

How to Break In Without Becoming a Liability

1. Pick a ladder. ROTV/survey or clearance diver. Write one CV.
2. Survey route: get online time with mag and SSS, then beg, borrow, or contract your way onto a ScanFish or FOCUS deck as second pilot. Log hours, altitude, and array type.
3. Data route: learn to pick G-882 anomalies and write a target sheet a Party Chief will sign. This is the non-diving entry.
4. Dive route: commercial ticket first, UXO task training second, never the other way around.
5. Netherlands route: CS-OOO levels if you want Dutch detection work. Ask the employer which level the contract needs.
6. Safety record is the product. One cowboy detonation story ends the career. Exclusion zones and tide calls are not optional colour.

FAQ

What is a ScanFish pilot?

The person who flies an EIVA ScanFish ROTV — a steered towfish — usually carrying magnetometers or side-scan a few metres above the seabed during a UXO or cable survey. Not a work-class ROV pilot.

ScanFish or ROV — which should I learn?

Learn ScanFish if you want the geophysical UXO survey seat. Learn ROV inspection if you want target identification after the list exists. Many campaigns use both. They are not the same logbook.

Do I have to dive to work in UXO?

No. Data analysts and ScanFish pilots do not dive. Clearance of the item itself is a diver or authorised EOD task, depending on depth and national rules.

What does UXO survey pay?

Analysts often $400–600/day. Diver technicians $700–1,000. Lead EOD on high-risk sites $1,000–1,600. Party Chiefs on the survey sit higher. Region and client move the number.

Is a Dutch OOO certificate valid on a UK wind farm?

It proves you understand regulated detection. It does not replace a UK client’s marine UXO procedure, a ScanFish log, or a commercial dive certificate. Stack what the LOI names.

The Bottom Line

1. UXO campaigns hire two ladders: ScanFish / mag survey, and clearance diver / EOD.
2. Write ScanFish, G-882, Katria, or FOCUS — not “towed equipment.”
3. German Bight and Dogger Bank are the proof: hundreds of targets, naval sign-off, exclusion zones, tide.
4. Non-divers start in data and ROTV. Divers start with a real commercial ticket.
5. The past is still on the seabed. The people who get rehired are the ones who slow down.

Filter CrewBase jobs for UXO, ScanFish, and survey seats — then send a CV that names the fish, the sensor, and whether you dive. The cable route does not care about your passion. It cares about the height you flew and the target you did not invent.