There seems to be some discrepancies in what vessel is going to tow the U.S. Navy pinger locator.
Both the TPL-25 Towed Pinger Locator System and a Bluefin-21 underwater drone have been sent to Perth from the U.S. along with 10 personnel to operate the systems.
The Bluefin-21 sports a Multibeam Echosounder, Side-Scan Sonar, and a Sub-bottom Profiler. It's capable of depths of 14,700' (4500M approx).
Initially it was stated the ADV Ocean Shield was going to tow the pinger locator - however, in recent days, it's been advised that the commercially-owned DMS Maritime Seahorse Standard would be utilising both search devices.
The Seahorse Standard is on long-term charter to the RAN and operates from HMAS Stirling naval base at Garden Island, just offshore from Perth.
However, I can't see where both systems would be operated from the one ship?
I guess it's possible both devices will be taken out to the search zone by the Seahorse Standard, and one of them will transferred to the Ocean Shield upon arrival at the search zone.
It's also been stated that neither ship will leave port until there's a report of
confirmed wreckage.
The Seahorse Standard is a Canadian-built vessel of 2090 gross tons, and it's pretty slow, with a 12kt maximum speed and a cruise speed of 8kts.
The much larger Ocean Shield looks like a more capable vessel to me.
It appears the Seahorse Standard carries side-scan sonar as standard equipment, and it also has ROV capabilities.
Seahorse Standard specs -
http://www.dmsmaritime.com/docs/dms_...ec%20sheet.pdf
Bluefin-21 specs -
http://www.phnx-international.com/sp..._Specsheet.pdf