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NOAA Ship TOWNSEND CROMWELL
October 1999 Featured Platform

  NOAA Ship TOWNSEND CROMWELL supports the scientific missions of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratory.  The ship normally operates in the Pacific throughout the Hawaiian Island Archipelago, and  conducts fisheries assessment surveys, physical and chemical oceanography, and marine mammal projects.  It collects fish and crustacean specimens using bottom trawls, longlines, and fish traps.  Plankton, fish larva and eggs are also collected with plankton nets and surface and midwater larval nets.

The ship is named after  Townsend Cromwell, Oceanographer for the Pacific Ocean Fisheries Investigation Office in Honolulu between 1949 and 1953.   CROMWELL was built for the  United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1963 and was transferred to NOAA in 1975.

CROMWELL is equipped with three small outboard driven boats, a wet and dry laboratory, two large scientific freezers, an acoustic doppler current profiler, two deep-sea oceanographic winches with a J-Frame, and  two 5,200 gallon bait/specimen wells.

The ship routinely conducts scuba diving missions for the Honolulu Laboratory.  Ample foredeck space enables  CROMWELL to carry a recompression chamber  as an added safety margin for dive-intensive missions in remote regions. The ship is actively involved in NMFS Honolulu Coral Reef Restoration Cruises, which concentrate scientific efforts on the removal, classification, and density of marine debris and discarded commercial fishing gear from fragile coral reefs.

Utilizing the Internet and Inmarsat (satellite communications) CROMWELL maintains a Web site titled Student Connection which provides semiweekly communication between students and the ship. Students can follow the vessel's daily operations through regularly posted pictures and write-ups through this site.

CROMWELL has a rigorous operating schedule, spending approximately 250 days at sea per year.  The ship is  homeported in Honolulu and is supported by NOAA’s Honolulu Port Office.
 

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Last Update  March 1, 2001 (cab)