August 2000 Featured Platform
NOAA Ship FERREL

The NOAA Ship FERREL, commissioned in 1968, is one of a fleet of research and survey vessels used by NOAA to improve our understanding of the marine environment.  The ship’s home port is Charleston, South Carolina.

Originally constructed for conducting tide and current surveys, the ship was converted for oceanographic research in the mid-1980’s to conduct coastal and estuarine research along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States.

Equipped with two cranes, an A-frame and three winches, FERREL can adapt to many different types of oceanographic research, including trawling, water and bottom sampling, and geologic and bathymetric surveys. The ship is equipped with two laboratories, computers for data acquisition and analysis, instruments for obtaining oceanographic and atmospheric data, and for imaging and mapping bottom habitats. The ship has the flexibility to carry as many as four different launches, ranging from a small inflatable boat for diving operations to a 19-foot tri-hull boat for conducting oceanographic operations in shallow waters.

FERREL is a highly capable, multipurpose platform involved in a wide variety of research projects. The two primary projects the ship supports are NOAA's National Ocean Service, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research National Sea Grant College Program. The ship also supports projects for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.

Recent voyages include the characterization of various flora and fauna habitats in NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries located at Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts; Gray's Reef, Georgia; the Florida Keys; and Flower Garden Banks, Texas. Other projects include salinity and current velocity studies at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and geophysical surveys of the coast and estuaries of South Carolina. The ship is proud to host oceanography and marine biology training programs for graduate and undergraduate students and secondary school teachers.

FERREL has long-lined for sharks, sampled sea floor sediments and conducted wave propagation and side-scan sonar surveys. It tows an ROV equipped with video cameras and a sub-bottom profiler, deploys a bottom coring device, services oceanographic/atmospheric surface and subsurface buoys, and frequently deploys divers for various underwater tasks.

FERREL provided support to the Sustainable Seas Expeditions in 1999, a joint project of NOAA and the National Geographic Society to explore and gain a better understanding of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries.

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Last Update  March 1, 2001