SLU news

Ancylus II – the new Lake Mälaren sampling boat

Published: 23 April 2019
Woman naming a boat. Photo.

The Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment has a new boat for sampling Lake Mälaren and other lakes.

On Friday 5th April a naming ceremony was held for Ancylus II, the new Lake Mälaren sampling boat purchased by the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment. The boat will be used in the sampling of Lake Mälaren for research and environmental monitoring purposes, which the department is performing in co-operation with the Lake Mälaren Society for Water Conservation.

The naming of the boat was officiated by Stina Drakare, Deputy Head of Department and co-ordinator of the Lake Mälaren research collaboration, together with the boat operators Fredrik Pilström and Joel Segersten as well as Ingrid Hägermark, Secretary of the Lake Mälaren Society for Water Conservation. The name Ancylus II was decided on through a naming poll where all employees of the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment were invited to suggest names and vote.

The previous boat named Ancylus was built in 1971 for sampling large lakes in Sweden, and was owned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. When the department was transferred from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the ownership of Ancylus was taken over by the Swedish National Board of Fisheries, which used Ancylus for survey test-fishing with trawl nets until 2008. In the approximately 20 year gap between Ancylus and Ancylus II the department has used an unnamed boat known only as the Lake Mälaren boat, which was by now in need of replacement. The new boat's name, Ancylus II, represents the importance of continuity in environmental monitoring. As a part of the boat naming ceremony Eva Willén, who was a participant in the Lake Mälaren Research project from it's beginning in 1965 and who still is active at the department, gave a seminar about the Lake Mälaren Research project during the 1960s.

Facts:

Ancylus is the name of a small fresh water snail which has given its name to the Ancylus Lake, a freshwater lake that preceded the Baltic Sea. The snail attaches itself tightly to hard surfaces and its silhouette looks like a wave.

Ancylus II is an Ockelbo 21 Cab equipped with a 150 hp Yamaha motor and an aluminium hull. Its maximum speed is 40 knots, which is about twice as fast as the earlier Lake Mälaren boat. Later this year it will be further equipped with GPS anchoring and a crane with winch.

The investment in the new boat is intended to allow easier sampling and a better working environment. Ancylus II is also more environmental friendly, since it is more fuel efficient than the previous boat.