After nearly 40 years of Pacific fisheries and oceanographic investigations, the research ship Townsend Cromwell will be decommissioned Thursday. Ship winds up
last research voyage
By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship was due to return to Honolulu today from its last expedition.
The ship participated in a multivessel mission to document biological, cultural and historic resources of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The Cromwell is being replaced by a much larger ship, the Oscar Elton Sette, named for an oceanographer who once worked at the National Marine Fisheries Service's Honolulu Laboratory.
The Sette's first scheduled trial cruise will be Nov. 11, said Mike Seki, oceanographer at the laboratory. Meanwhile, some improvements will be made and instruments and equipment transferred from the Cromwell, he said.
The Cromwell, which is slated to be turned over to American Samoa, arrived in Honolulu on Christmas Day 1963 and was commissioned on Jan. 25, 1964.
Seki said she has done about 281 cruises since then. The research changed with the mission of the Honolulu Laboratory, which initially was mostly an oceanographic facility, he said.
The first 20 cruises were conducted in an oceanographic experiment to characterize waters influenced by northeast tradewinds north of the equator, which led to a general circulation model of the North Pacific.
With passage of the Magnuson Act of 1976 and establishment of the 200-mile fishery conservation zone, the Cromwell supported federal-state investigations of marine and land-based resources of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Seki said he believes that was one of the largest contributions made by the Cromwell "because she was the primary platform for surveys and support for land-based work, whether for seabirds or monk seals."
After that program, in 1982, the ship continued assessments of commercial fishery resources such as spiny lobster, bottom fish and precious corals. Deep shrimp and bottom fish resource assessments were done around Guam and the Northern Mariana islands.
The ship has supported field camps on Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to count monk seals and green sea turtles, under a federal mandate for preservation.
It also participated in oceanographic cruises using satellites to gain new understanding of wind-generated eddies and large frontal systems in Pacific fisheries areas.
Most recently, the Cromwell has been involved in resource assessments for the Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve in the northwestern islands.
Seki said researchers will be able to work farther in the Pacific with the Sette and do "everything bigger" because it is much larger than the Cromwell, 224 feet to 163.
Both have similar nautical range of 8,000 miles, but the Sette can take 24 scientists and the Cromwell only 11.
Another NOAA vessel, the Vindicator, is expected to join the Sette in Hawaii in 2004 to conduct ocean observations for climate changes, as well as fisheries, coral reef and related research.
Also based here is the NOAA ship Ka'imimoana, which maintains an array of buoys along the equator for ocean observations that may help predict events such as El Ninos and La Ninas.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
