NOAAS Delaware II (R 445)

NOAAS Delaware II (R 445)

The NOAA Ship Delaware II (R 445) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fisheries research vessel.

Delaware II was built at South Portland Engineering in South Portland, Maine. She was launched in December 1967 and commissioned in October 1968, operating under the Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. When NOAA was established in 1970, she became part of NOAA's fleet.

The hull of the ship is 155 feet (47 metres) long. The ship has a total of 32 bunk spaces. The mess room can seat 16 for meals. She carries a complement of 18—conisisting of a licensed Master, a Chief Mate, three NOAA Corps officers, three licensed engineers, and 10 other crew members—and in addition can accommodate up to 14 scientists.

The deck equipment features five winches, one boom crane, two A-frames, and a moveable gantry. This equipment gives Delaware II a lifting capacity of up to 7,000 pounds (3,170 kilograms) as well 19,680 feet (6,000 metres) of cable that can pull up to 20,000 pounds (9,070 kilograms). Each of the winches serves a specialized function ranging from trawling to hydrographic surveys.

In support of her primary mission of fishery and living marine resource research for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) division of NOAA, the ship is equipped with echo sounders and an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP). Additional scientific equipment includes a thermosalinograph; a conductivity, temperature, and depth profiler; three hull-mounted sea surface temperature probes and a fluorometer. She has 666 square feet (61 square metres) of laboratory space with a wet lab and a dry/chemistry lab. There is also a 201-cubic-foot (5.7-cubic-metre) walk-in freezer. An 18-foot (5.4-metre) rigid hull inflatable boat is available for utility or rescue operations.

Based at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and operated by NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. Delaware II conducted fishery research in support of NMFS's Northeast Fisheries Science Center's (NEFSC) Woods Hole Laboratory. She normally operated in the Gulf of Maine, on the Georges Bank, and on the continental shelf and continental slope from southern New England to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Typical assessment work included groundfish assessment surveys and marine resources monitoring, assessment, and prediction (MARMAP) surveys. Research conducted from Delaware II sought to understand the physical and biological processes that control year-class strength of key economical fish species.