5 Pioneering Ocean Research Vessels

Space exploration gets a lot of attention, but the Earth’s oceans are a strange, new world close to home. Over the past 125 years, human adventurers have pushed through the polar ice sheets and delved to the very deepest part of the seafloor. Below are the stories of five pioneering research vessels that made that exploration possible.
 

Fram

Until the late 1800s, the Arctic region had not been fully explored and Antarctica was largely unknown, due in no small part to the forbidding ice sheets in those regions. Ships caught in the ice would have their hulls crushed, stranding the crew. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen conceived of a ship that could avoid that fate by working with the ice rather than trying to ward off its pressure. 

The hull of the three-masted schooner Fram, launched in 1892, was wide and shallow, with the intent of allowing pressing ice to push it upwards and out of the water. The rudder and propeller would also retract to protect them from damage. Other innovations included an onboard windmill to generate electricity, and insulation to enable the crew to live onboard for five years if necessary.

Although the Fram never reached the North Pole, it was the base for Roald Amundsen’s historic expedition to the South Pole in 1911.
 

R/P Flip 

In the mid-20th century, navies around the world wanted to better understand sonar, which had been developed for range finding—and uncovering the location of submarines. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography developed the Flip (an acronym for “floating instrument platform”) to serve as a stable base for measuring the acoustic properties of oceanic water. Launched in 1962, the design was unique: Hatches in the rear of the 355-foot platform would open and flood large tanks until the entire vessel pitched perpendicular to the water, with only the front 55 feet projecting from the surface. Because of this capability, the bulkheads doubled as decks for the crew of five plus nearly a dozen researchers. (Even the toilets flipped 90 degrees.)

As deployed, the Flip was very stable and could study wave height, acoustic signals, ocean temperature, water density, and a host of atmospheric measures. The platform was scrapped in 2023 after 60 years of research.
 

HOV Alvin

Based at the famed Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, Alvin was the U.S. Navy’s premier underwater research vessel from the day it launched in 1964. Until that time, researchers conducted deep ocean exploration in unpowered bathyspheres and other, less maneuverable vessels. Alvin enabled two scientists and a pilot to explore at depths of more than 21,000 feet, and two robotic arms allowed for taking samples or deploying experimental equipment.

After an accident that sank the vessel (the crew escaped), Alvin received upgrades to enable it to go to the very bottom of the ocean floor. Researchers aboard the Alvin were the first to explore the mid-ocean ridge along the center of the Atlantic and the deep-ocean ecosystem surrounding hydrothermal vents. Alvin also photographed the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in 1986.
 

USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer

This innovative ship was built for one mission, but it was a spectacular one. American intelligence officials found out that the Soviet submarine K-129 had sunk in 16,500 feet of water in the Pacific Ocean. Hoping that the wreckage could yield valuable insights to Soviet military capability, the U.S. government contracted with billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes to build a recovery vessel. The ship featured a giant claw capable of pulling up an entire submarine; the claw descended and ascended on a string of pipes much like those used in drilling operations. The recovery operations centered on a “moon pool” in midship to keep the weight of the salvaged submarine from tipping the Hughes Glomar Explorer to the side.

For all its advanced design, the claws failed (possibly due to being manufactured from the wrong type of steel), and two-thirds of the K-129 fell back to the ocean floor. The front section of the submarine that was recovered contained the bodies of six Soviet sailors (who were given a proper burial at sea) and two nuclear-tipped torpedoes. The Hughes Glomar Explorer had a second life as a mineral and petroleum exploration ship.
 

Deepsea Challenger

The Challenger Deep, the lowest point in the oceans at 35,814 feet below sea level, had been visited in 1960 by the crew of the bathyscaphe Trieste. 52 years later, a billionaire film director repeated the feat in a single-person submersible. Deepsea Challenger surrounds the pilot with a steel sphere featuring 2.5-inch-thick walls capable of withstanding more than 16,000 pounds per square inch of pressure. Much of the rest of the vessel was made from small hollow glass spheres suspended in an epoxy resin; the material is less dense than water but capable of withstanding the crushing pressure of the Challenger Deep. Overall, Deepsea Challenger had one-tenth the mass of the Trieste.

Deepsea Challenger also carried scientific sampling equipment, a robotic arm, and high-definition cameras. In 2012, film director James Cameron piloted the vessel to the deepest spot in the Challenger Deep after two and a half hours of descent. In spite of the pressure, a wristwatch on the robotic arm (part of a promotion for one of the submersible’s sponsors) continued to function. 

Jeffrey Winters is editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine.