Droopy,
I used that Scrabble-winning word to tease Arnie Madsen.
For forum-members (edited to add that for some reason the forum censors its own name!) who didn't click on the link soon after I made that post, I should explain that the vessel was bimbling up and down on North/South headings at about 4 knots. That type of search pattern shows that the ship was still engaged in the first phase of the search and was almost certainly using multibeam swathe-sounding sonar and towing a side-scan sonar towfish. It's quite possible that they were also using a laser line-scan to produce near photo quality imagery to augment the high-res 500kHz side-scan data though I suspect tht they may not have had time to mobilise that very specialised bit of kit.
Since that post the vessel has clearly completed that phase and is currently underway to Peterhead to prepare for the ROV phase of the search and recovery op.
The data obtained in phase one will be used to determine the chronological priorities for the ROV phase. I don't know whether a decision has been made whether or not to use live divers to assist in the recovery. If I were a gambling man (I'm not!) I'd wager a McPoond that they will use divers because of the sensitivity of respectfully recovering the human remains and to assist in slinging complex-shaped, large, fragile and very important items of wreckage.
I'm not speculating here; merely sharing a little insight which results from having been very deeply involved in dozens of such grim operations.
I would expect the ensuing priorities to be as follows:
One: Respectful recovery of human remains
Two: CVR/DFDR and HUMS boxes
Three: Selected items of debris, to be prioritised by the AAIB Inspector