NOAAS Delaware II (R 445)

Delaware II's hull is 155 feet (47 metres) long, and she has accommodations for 32 personnel. The mess room can seat 16 for meals. She carried a crew of 18, consisting of a licensed master, a chief mate, three NOAA Corps officers, three licensed engineers, and 10 other crew members. In addition, she can accommodate up to 14 scientists.

Delaware II after a drydock mishap.

Delaware II's deck equipment features five winches, one boom crane, two A-frames, and a movable 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 has 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 laboratory and a dry/chemistry laboratory. She also has a 201-cubic-foot (5.7-cubic-metre) walk-in freezer. She carries an 18-foot (5.4-metre) rigid hull inflatable boat for utility use and rescue operations.

Delaware II was built at South Portland Engineering in South Portland, Maine. She was launched in December 1967 and commissioned in October 1968 into service with the Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries as BCF Delaware II. When NOAA was established on 3 October 1970, she became part of NOAA's fleet as NOAAS Delaware II (R 445).

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, economically important fish species.

NOAA decommissioned Delaware II on 28 September 2012 and placed her in reserve.

In 2014, Delaware II was renamed Med Surveyor and registered to the Cook Islands as a fishery patrol vessel.[2]

• NOAA ships and aircraft

Wikimedia Commons has media related to NOAAS Delaware II (R 445).

• "NOAA Ship Delaware II". January 10, 2006. Retrieved May 10, 2006.
• NOAA Ship Delaware II
• Prézelin, Bernard, and A. D. Baker III, eds. The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World 1990/1991: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Armament. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1990. ISBN 0-87021-250-8.