The survey was carried out by Commander Sanders and Lieutenant Grieve who were in the employ of the Indian Navy. In 1840 the British had taken control of the port of Aden; a strategically important port along the trade route from England to India. From their base at Aden the British began to steadily grapple with the problem of piracy that had been plaguing much of British shipping. In order to achieve this they required the most up-to-date hydrographic information, hence the significant increase in the charting of the region by the likes of Sanders, Grieve, Carless, and Moresby. In fact by the middle of the eighteenth century whole of the Arabian Peninsula had been surveyed.

The Indian Navy was the naval arm of the East India Company. It had been established by the Company as early as 1612 when it protected the their nascent commercial interests. In 1686 with most of the English commerce moving to Bombay the navy was renamed 'The Bombay Marine'. A name that it would keep for the next 144 years, until in 1830, it was renamed the 'Her Majesty's Indian Navy'. This title would, however, not be so long lived and in 1858, when the EIC was releaved of its adminstration of India the navy was brought under the control of the British State.