Oceanographic Survey Operations 1948-1970
Rehoboth commenced conversion to an oceanographic survey ship in 1948. She recommissioned on 2 September 1948, and commenced oceanographic survey work under the direction of the Navy Hydrographic Office, predecessor of the Naval Oceanographic Office, being redesignated AGS-50 in August 1949. Equipped with a small laboratory and machinery to take Nansen casts, which provide the oceanographer with the temperature and samples of sea water at different depths, and to drill for core samples, she traveled over 300,000 nautical miles (560,000 km) in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas during her first six years of operation.
In February 1952, while crossing the Atlantic, Rehoboth discovered and accurately positioned an underwater mountain range with heights up to 12,000 feet (3,658 m) above the ocean floor. In March 1952 she discovered and charted a 7,000-foot (2,134 m) undersea mountain near Bermuda and in August 1953 she became the first ship to anchor in over 2½ miles (4,023 m) of water.
Employed on special projects in 1953 and 1954, she returned to oceanographic survey work in the Atlantic and Caribbean in 1955.
Transferred to the Pacific in 1956, Rehoboth departed Philadelphia on 15 February 1956. Transiting the Panama Canal on 22 February 1956, she was diverted to an area northwest of the Galapagos Islands to search for the raft Cantuta, which she found after four days. On 9 March 1956 Rehoboth reached San Francisco, and for the next year operated off the United States West Coast. On 4 March 1957 she proceeded to Pearl Harbor for three months of work in Hawaiian waters. For the next nine months she operated in the eastern Pacific. In April 1958 she extended her range to the Marshall Islands and in 1960 to the Western Pacific. In October 1960 she also added operations off the coast of South America. For the next four years her missions spanned the Pacific from equatorial to arctic climes.
In September 1965 Rehoboth completed operations in the northern Pacific and in November 1965 commenced survey operations in the South China Sea, conducting in December 1965 a hydrographic survey of the coast of South Vietnam from the Mekong Delta to Cape Padaran.
After completing survey operations in the South China Sea in February 1966, Rehoboth sailed east, arriving at San Francisco, California, on 23 March 1966. Overhaul and United States West Coast operations followed. In 1967 she conducted operations in the northern and western Pacific. In California waters from December 1967 until 14 March 1968, she then departed San Francisco for Yokosuka, Japan. She undertook survey operations in the Philippine Sea until August 1968, returning to San Francisco on 26 September 1968, where she remained for the balance of the year. She operated off the California coast in early 1969 until deploying to the Far East in August 1969, returning in December 1969 to San Francisco.
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