Research vessel

Research Vessel

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Research vessel

A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship

Ship

A ship is a large watercraft that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the ferry or cargo ships, fishing, cruise ship, Coast guard, and warship....
designed and equipped to carry out research

Research

Research is defined as human activity based on intellectual application in the investigation of matter. The primary purpose for applied research is discovery , interpretation , and the development of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters of our world and the universe....
at sea

SEA

See also: Sea and seasThe three-letter acronym SEA may refer to:People/organizations/businesses*Scientists and Engineers for America, a pro-science political advocacy group....
. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel.

Due to the demanding nature of the work these ships have to deal with, research vessels are often constructed around an icebreaker

Icebreaker

An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to icebreaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels ....
hull

Hull (watercraft)

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History

The research ship had origins in the early voyages of exploration. By the time of James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook Royal Society Royal Navy was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy....
's Endeavour

HM Bark Endeavour

His Majesty's Bark Endeavour was a 10-gun Royal Navy barque commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his First voyage of James Cook, to Australia and New Zealand in 1769-71....
, the essentials of what today we would call a research ship are clearly apparent. In 1766, the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
to observe and record the transit of Venus

Transit of Venus

A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the solar disk....
across the Sun

Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
. The Endeavour was a sturdy boat, well designed and equipped for the ordeals she would face, and fitted out with facilities for her "research" personnel, Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, Order of the Bath, President of the Royal Society was an England Natural history, Botany and patron of the natural sciences....
. And, as is common with contemporary research vessels, Endeavour carried out more than one kind of research, including comprehensive hydrographic survey

Hydrographic survey

Hydrographic survey in its strictest sense is the process of gathering information about navigable waters for the purposes of safe navigation of vessels....
work.

Some other notable early research vessels were HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle was a Cherokee class brig-sloop 10-gun sloop-of-war#Rigging of the Royal Navy, named after the beagle, a breed of dog. She was ship naming and launching on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of ?7,803....
, RV Calypso, HMS Challenger

HMS Challenger (1858)

The fifth HMS Challenger was a steam-assisted Royal Navy corvette. In 1862 she took part in operations against Mexico, including the occupation of Veracruz, Veracruz, and in 1866 a punitive operation against some Fijian natives to avenge the murder of a missionary and some of his dependents....
, and the Endurance

Endurance (1912 ship)

The Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition....
andTerra Nova

Terra Nova (ship)

The Terra Nova was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet. She worked for 10 years in the annual Seal hunting in the Labrador Sea proving her worth for many years before she was called upon for expedition work....
.

Modern types

Hydrographic survey

A hydrographic survey ship is a vessel designed to conduct hydrographic

Hydrography

Hydrography focuses on the measurement of physical characteristics of waters and marginal land. In the generalized usage, "hydrography" pertains to measurement and description of any waters....
research and survey

Hydrographic survey

Hydrographic survey in its strictest sense is the process of gathering information about navigable waters for the purposes of safe navigation of vessels....
. Nautical chart

Nautical chart

A nautical chart is a graphic representation of a Sea area and adjacent coastal regions. Depending on the scale of the chart, it may show depths of water and heights of land , natural features of the seabed, details of the coastline, navigational hazards, locations of natural and man-made aids to navigation, information on tides and Current...
s are produced from this information to ensure safe navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of reading, and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks....
by military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or Threat of force ....
and civilian

Civilian

A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces. The term is also often used colloquially to refer to people who are not members of a particular profession or occupation, especially by law enforcement agency, which often use rank structures similar to those of military units...
shipping

Shipping

Shipping is physical process of transporting product and cargo. Virtually every product ever made, bought, or sold has been affected by shipping....
.

Hydrographic survey vessels also conduct seismic

Seismology

Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of Linear elasticity#Elastic waves through the Earth. The field also includes studies of earthquake effects, such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes ....
surveys of the seabed and the underlying geology

Geology

Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structural geology, physical properties, dynamics, and History of the Earth of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed....
. Apart from producing the charts, this information is useful for detecting geological features which are likely to bear oil

Petroleum

Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds....
or gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a gas consisting primarily of methane. It is found associated with fossil fuels, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, and landfills....
. These vessels usually mount equipment on a towed structure

Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Most barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats....
, for example, air cannons, used to generate a high pressure

Pressure

Pressure is the force per unit area applied to an object in a direction surface normal to the surface. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure....
shock wave

Shock wave

A shock wave is a type of propagating disturbance. Like an ordinary wave, it carries energy and can propagate through a medium or in some cases in the absence of a material medium, through a field such as the electromagnetic field....
to sound the strata

Stratum

In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguishes it from contiguous layers....
beneath the seabed

Seabed

The seabed is the bottom of the ocean. At the bottom of the continental slope is the continental rise, which is caused by sediment cascading down the continental slope....
, or mounted on the keel

Keel

In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, the construction is dated from this event, with only the ship's Ship_naming_and_launching considered more significant in its creati...
, for example, a depth sounder.

In practice, hydrographic survey vessels are often equipped to perform multiple roles. Some function also as oceanographic

Oceanography

Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemi...
research ships. Naval hydrographic survey vessels often do naval research, for example, on submarine detection.

An example of a hydrographic survey vessel is CCGS Frederick G. Creed

CCGS Frederick G. Creed

The CCGS Frederick G. Creed is a hydrographic survey vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard on behalf of the Canadian Hydrographic Service, a scientific agency of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans ....
. For an example of the employment of a survey ship see HMS Hydra (A144)

HMS Hydra (A144)

HMS Hydra was a Royal Navy deep ocean hydrographic survey vessel, the third of the original three of the Hecla class survey vessel. The ship was laid down as yard number 2258 on 14 May 1964 at Yarrow Shipbuilders, at Scotstoun on the River Clyde and launched on 14 July 1965 by Mary Lythall, wife of the then Chief Scientist , Basil W Lyth...
.

Oceanographic research

Oceanographic

Oceanography

Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
, chemical

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
and biological

Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
characteristics of water

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
, the atmosphere

Atmosphere

An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, by the gravity of the body, and are retained for a longer duration if gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low....
and climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, winds, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other Meteorology elements in a given region over long periods of time, as opposed to the term weather, which refers to current activity of these same elements....
, and as such, are required to carry equipment for collection of water samples from a range of depths, including the deep seas, as well as equipment for hydrographic sounding of the seabed, along with numerous other environmental sensors. As the requirements of both oceanographic and hydrographic research are very different from those of fisheries research, these boats often fulfil a dual role.

An example of an oceanographic research vessel is NOAAS Ronald H. Brown

NOAAS Ronald H. Brown

The U.S. NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown is a blue-water research vessel of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She was launched on May 30, 1996 at Halter Marine's Moss Point shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi and then commissioned on July 19 in Charleston, South Carolina....
.

Fisheries research

A fisheries research

Fisheries science

Fisheries science is the academic discipline of managing and understanding fisheries. It is a multidisciplinary science, which draws on the disciplines of oceanography, marine biology, marine conservation, ecology, Population dynamics of fisheries, economics and management to attempt to provide an integrated picture of fisheries....
vessel (FRV) requires platforms which are capable of towing different types of fishing net

Fishing net

A fishing net or fishnet is a Net that is used for fishing. Fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread....
s, collecting plankton

Plankton

Plankton consist of any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. Plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than their Phylogenetics or taxonomy classification....
or water samples from a range of depths, and carrying acoustic

Sonar

Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigation, communicate with or detect other vessels. There are two kinds of sonar: active and passive....
fish-finding equipment. Fisheries research vessels are often designed and built along the same lines as a large fishing vessel

Fishing vessel

A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in Commercial fishing, Artisan fishing and recreational fishing....
, but with space given over to laboratories

Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories....
and equipment storage, as opposed to storage of the catch.

An example of a fisheries research vessel is FRV Scotia

Fisheries Research Services

Fisheries Research Services is an List of Scottish Executive agencies of the Scottish Government. FRS is responsible for scientific and technical research into the marine and freshwater Scottish fisheries and aquaculture, and the protection of the aquatic Ecosystem in Scotland....
.

Naval research

Naval research vessels investigate naval concerns, such as submarine and mine detection, sonar and weapon trialling.

An example of a naval research vessel is Neue Planet

Planet class research ship

The Type 751 Planet of the German Navy is the most modern naval research ship within NATO. It was built as Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull design in order to reduce the hull volume and to increase the ship's stability - particularly in high seas and at high speed....
.

Polar research

Polar

Polar region

Earth polar regions are the areas of the globe surrounding the geographical pole also known as Geographical zone. The North Pole and South Pole being the centers, these regions are dominated by the polar ice caps, resting respectively on the Arctic Ocean and the continent of Antarctica....
research vessels are constructed around an icebreaker

Icebreaker

Hull (watercraft)

A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. It is a central concept in floating vessels as it provides the buoyancy that keeps the vessel from sinking....
, allowing them to operate in polar waters. These boats usually have dual roles, particularly in the Antarctic where they function also as polar replenishment and supply vessels to the Antarctic research bases.

An example of a polar research vessel is USCGC Polar Star.

Oil exploration

External links

- home of the "Polarstern
PFS Polarstern

RV Polarstern is a Germany research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. The Polarstern was commissioned in 1982 and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica....
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