NOAAS Discoverer (R 102), originally USC&GS Discoverer (OSS 02), was an American Oceanographer-class oceanographic research vessel in service in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1966 to 1970 and in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 1996.
Construction
Discoverer was laid down on 10 September 1963 by Aerojet General Shipyards at Jacksonville, Florida. A very serious fire in the area of her meat preparation room and freezers brought her construction to a stop, but it resumed and she was launched on 29 October 1964. Soon after launching, she was moved to the Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Baltimore, Maryland, where she received a single computer system, the first system of its kind, which revolutionizing environmental data collection and processing; via the computer, Discoverers propulsion and other machinery was automated through a centralized engine room control (CERC) system, which measured and recorded the ships course and speed, magnetic field intensity, gravity, surface current, and temperature. She had chemistry, wet and dry oceanographic, meteorological, gravimetric, and photographic laboratories. She also had several precision oceanographic winches and an underwater observation chamber.
After successful sea trials – in which she outperformed her sister ship USC&GS Oceanographer (OSS 01), making ahead, more than she was designed for, and astern – she was delivered to the United States Government on 15 December 1966. At in length, she and her sister Oceanographer — which entered service nine months before Discoverer — were the largest vessels constructed for research purposes to date.
Operational career
The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey classified the ship as an "ocean survey ship" (OSS) and commissioned her as USC&GS Discoverer (OSS 02), the second Coast and Geodetic Survey ship of the name, on 29 April 1967 with Captain William F. Deane, USC&GS, in command. For 30 years, she operated in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and from the Arctic to the Antarctic ice shelf. By conservative estimates, she steamed more than during her career, spending between 240 and 270 days of each year at sea.
Home-ported in Miami, Florida, Discoverers first assignment was to represent the U.S. Government at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, or Expo 67, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; She was on display there from 2 July 1967 to 9 July 1967
Following Expo 67, Discoverer embarked on an intensive study of the Gregg Seamount in the North Atlantic Ocean. The research was the first of its kind to be conducted on a seamount. Discoverers scientific expedition moored and recovered complex oceanographic instruments during the research. Despite encountering numerous malfunctions in the equipment, Discoverers personnel persevered.
Later in 1967, after a minor overhaul at Jacksonville, Florida, Discoverer operated on research expeditions in the Gulf of Maine and over the Atlantic Oceans Blake Plateau, investigating the status of manganese nodules on the ocean floor. In January 1968 she embarked on a three-month expedition of to gather information from the depths of the South Atlantic Ocean. She delivered personnel and equipment to the west coast of Africa, then headed back across the Atlantic to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Under the direction of Dr. Robert S. Dietz, she conducted operations in which data was used in the investigation of geological history and theories of continental drift.
When the Coast and Geodetic Survey and other United States Government agencies combined to form NOAA on 3 October 1970, Discoverer became part of the NOAA fleet as the research ship NOAAS Discoverer (R 102), the first NOAA ship to bear the name. Her home port later was shifted to Seattle, Washington. In 1985, she received a multi-beam bathymetric mapping sonar, the Inmarsat satellite communications system, and a Global Position Indicator.