Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow
It began with a single thud, says the Seattle Times.
After 58 years of service the John N. Cobb, the last wooden hulled ship in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet, has been retired. It was due to be retired in October, but the thud and subsequent thuds of increasing in volume and frequency that occurred while transiting the Warren Channel in Southeast Alaska signaled a sheared main crankshaft and the end for the ship. The Cobb is older than NOAA is.
This retirement news comes on the same day that NOAA announced the commissioning of the Okeanos Explorer, a former U.S. Navy surveillance vessel converted to perform ocean exploration.
The Cobb, a 93-foot fisheries research vessel, has operated primarily in Alaskan waters for much of her interesting life. She started out being used for surveys of bottomfish and shellfish from southern Oregon to the Arctic Ocean, which are still provide baseline data for environmental evaluations, but the list of research she was involved in over her life is long. One highlight surely had to be:
“Skulking scientists dressed all in white, hoping to be mistaken for ice floes by the harbor seals they were trying to study.” (Seattle Times.)
The Cobb had been scheduled for decommissioning in the late 1980s, but after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1989 she was put to work helping to assess the damage to marine life. The ship was well loved by the crew and support staff, and that helped her to keep going well beyond her intended life span.
“She has been operating with her original 1931-design Fairbanks-Morse engine until this year,” Rear Admiral Jonathan W. Bailey, director of the NOAA Corps says in the press release [press]. Parts reportedly “had to be obtained from motors displayed in museums” (Seattle times).
John Nathan Cobb (1868-1930), who the ship was named after, was an expert on fisheries who had a distinguished career as an author, naturalist, and conservationist, was founding director of the first fisheries school in the U.S., the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, and all “without the benefit of a college education”, says the Marine Fisheries Review.
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Ship JOHN N. COBB. Pre-NOAA.
The JOHN N. COBB 1/4 mile from Lamplugh Glacier, Glacier Bay.
The JOHN N. COBB 1/4 mile from Lamplugh Glacier, Glacier Bay.
