USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) was a United States Navy Stalwart-class modified tactical auxiliary general ocean surveillance ship that was in service from 1984 to 1993. Vindicator then served in the United States Coast Guard from 1994 to 2001 as the medium endurance cutter USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3). From 2004 to 2020, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334).
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) |
| Namesake | A vindicator is someone who justifies something by providing evidence or who maintains or defends a cause against opposition |
| Operator | Military Sealift Command |
| Ordered | 26 September 1980 |
| Builder | Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, Tacoma, Washington |
| Laid down | 14 April 1983 |
| Launched | 1 June 1984 |
| Acquired | 21 November 1984 (delivered) |
| In service | 21 November 1984 |
| Out of service | 30 June 1993 |
| Stricken | 30 June 1993 |
| Identification | IMO number: 8835619 |
| Fate | Transferred to U.S. Coast Guard 30 June 1993 |
| Acquired | Transferred from U.S. Coast Guard 2001 |
| Fate | Transferred to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration October 2001 |
 United States | |
| Name | USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3) |
| Namesake | Previous name retained |
| Acquired | By lease from U.S. Navy 30 June 1993 |
| Commissioned | 20 May 1994 |
| Decommissioned | 19 August 1994 |
| Notes | In reserve 1994-1999 |
| Recommissioned | 24 August 1999 |
| Decommissioned | 1 May 2001 |
| Homeport | Norfolk, Virginia |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | Returned to U.S. Navy 2001 |
 United States | |
| Name | NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334) |
| Namesake | Hiʻialakai is a Hawaiian word meaning "embracing pathways to the sea" and holding a deeper meaning of "guiding leaders of the seas"[2] |
| Acquired | Transferred from U.S. Navy October 2001 |
| Commissioned | 3 September 2004 |
| Decommissioned | 14 December 2020 |
| Sponsored by | Margaret "Maggie" Awamura Inouye and Isabella A. Abbott |
| Homeport | Pearl Harbor, Hawaiʻi |
| Identification |
|
| General characteristics (as U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship) | |
| Class and type | Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship |
| Displacement | 2,285 long tons |
| Length | 224 ft (68 m) |
| Beam | 43 ft (13 m) |
| Draft | 16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) |
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers |
| Speed | 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) |
| Crew | 33 (15 U.S. Navy personnel, 15 civilians) |
| Armament | none |
| General characteristics (as U.S. Coast Guard Cutter) | |
| Type | Medium endurance cutter |
| Length | 224 ft (68 m) |
| Beam | 43 ft (13 m) |
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers |
| Speed | 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) (cruising) |
| General characteristics (as NOAA oceanographic research ship) | |
| Class and type | ex-U.S. Navy Stalwart-class oceanographic research ship |
| Tonnage | |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 224 ft (68 m) |
| Beam | 43 ft (13 m) |
| Draft | 16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) |
| Depth | 20 ft (6.1 m) |
| Installed power | 1,600 horsepower (2.1 megawatts) |
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers |
| Speed |
|
| Range | 20,232 nautical miles (37,470 km; 23,283 mi) |
| Endurance | 35 days |
| Boats & landing craft carried | Up to five small work boats |
| Complement | 28 (6 NOAA Corps officers, 3 licensed engineers, and 19 other crew) plus up to 22 scientists |
| Sensors and processing systems | Multibeam sonar; echosounder |
Construction
editVindicator was ordered on 26 September 1980. She was laid down on 14 April 1983 by the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, at Tacoma, Washington, and was launched on 1 June 1984. Tacoma Boatbuilding delivered her to the U.S. Navy on 21 November 1984.
United States Navy service
editThe Navy placed the ship in non-commissioned service in the Military Sealift Command on the day of her delivery as USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3). Designed to collect underwater acoustical data in support of Cold War anti-submarine warfare operations using Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) sonar equipment, Vindicator spent the final years of the Cold War searching for Soviet Navy submarines.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of December 1991 brought the Cold War to an end, the requirement for such search operations declined. On 30 June 1993, the Navy removed Vindicator from service and simultaneously struck her from the Naval Vessel Register and leased her to the United States Coast Guard.[3]
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United States Coast Guard service
editWith their own ship moored at the United States Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay in Baltimore, Maryland, from June to October 1993, the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard medium endurance cutter USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166) reported aboard Vindicator and manned her during her Coast Guard acceptance trials.[4] Vindicator was commissioned into Coast Guard service on 20 May 1994 as the medium endurance cutter USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3) for use in counternarcotics operations, based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving as a "mother ship" for 38-foot (12 m) pursuit boats used to intercept drug smugglers. During 1994, manned by many former crew members of the by-then-decommissioned Tamaroa, Vindicator took part in Operation Able Manner, a joint U.S. Coast Guard-U.S. Navy effort to interdict would-be Haitian migrants to the United States.[4][5] She was decommissioned on 19 August 1994 and placed in reserve at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay.
After five years of inactivity, Vindicator was recommissioned on 24 August 1999. At one point, she was under evaluation to be a test ship for a Marine Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Demonstration Module.[6][7] The Coast Guard found that Vindicator and five other Stalwart-class ships the Navy had transferred were inadequate as Coast Guard cutters because of their inability to carry helicopters and low top speed, and budget limitations prevented the Coast Guard from addressing these shortfalls.[8] Budget cuts in early 2001 resulted in termination of the lease, and she was decommissioned again on 1 May 2001 and returned to the Military Sealift Command.[9][10]
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration service
editTransfer and commissioning
editIn October 2001, Vindicator was transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). After a $4,000,000 conversion into an oceanographic research ship, she was commissioned into NOAA service on 3 September 2004 as NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334), co-sponsored by Margaret "Maggie" Awamura Inouye, the wife of United States Senator from Hawaiʻi Daniel Inouye, and University of Hawaiʻi Professor Emerita Isabella A. Abbott.[2][11]
Capabilities
editHiʻialakai was equipped with multibeam sonar and echosounder equipment for underwater mapping work. She was well equipped to support both shallow- and deep-water dive projects. She was able to carry up to five small work boats for transporting divers to and from working areas, multiple dive lockers to store scientific gear and equipment, a membrane Nitrox fill system for filling dive tanks, and a three-person, double-lock decompression chamber.[11][12]
Hiʻialakai had a wet laboratory with a scientific freezer, a dry laboratory, and a computer and electronics laboratory. On deck, she had a 46-foot (14 m) telescoping boom with a lifting capacity of 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg) at full extension, an A-frame with a maximum safe working load of 22,000 pounds (10,000 kg), and a J-frame with a maximum safe working load of 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg). Her normal complement of boats consisted of a 29-foot (8.8 m) boat with a 455-horsepower (339 kW) diesel motor and a capacity of 10 people, a 26-foot (7.9 m) boat with a 210-horsepower (160 kW) diesel motor and a capacity of 10 people, a 17-foot (5.2 m) boat with a 90-horsepower (67 kW) outboard motor and a capacity of five people, and an 18-foot (5.5 m) SOLAS-approved rescue boat with a 90-horsepower (67 kW) outboard motor and a capacity of seven people.[12]
In addition to her crew of 28, Hiʻialakai could accommodate up to 22 scientists.[12]
Career
editHiʻialakai was home-ported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaiʻi. She operated in the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Insular Area, which includes American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam.[11] Her first cruise in NOAA service – to support assessment, monitoring, and mapping in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at Nihoa, Necker Island (also known as Mokumanamana), the French Frigate Shoals (also known as Kānemilohaʻi), the Gardner Pinnacles (also known as Pūhāhonu), Maro Reef (also known as Nalukākala), Laysan (also known as Kauō), Lisianski Island (also known as Papa‘āpoho) and the surrounding Neva Shoals, Pearl and Hermes Atoll (also known as Holoikauaua), Kure Atoll (also known as Mokupāpapa and as Ocean Island), and Midway Atoll (also known as Pihemanu Kauihelani) – began on 13 September 2004.[2]
Hiʻialakai supported the research of NOAA's National Ocean Service, National Marine Sanctuaries, National Marine Fisheries Service, and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, as well as that of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Hawaiʻi. She conducted coral reef ecosystem mapping, bio-analysis assessments, coral reef health studies, and fish stock studies. Her coral reef mapping supported a mapping effort initiated in 2002 by the United States Coral Reef Task Force. She carried out most of her dive-intensive operations in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which became the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, in 2006.[11]
In 2008, maritime archeologists embarked aboard Hiʻialakai discovered the wreck of a sailing ship in the French Frigate Shoals which turned out to be that of the 19th-century whaling ship Two Brothers.[13]
Hiʻialakai made her longest cruise — a 103-day voyage — during a 2015 assessment of coral reefs in the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. Her divers conducted 3,500 dives, using all three of her boats, during this voyage.[14]
After discovering that Hiʻialakai was suffering from extensive corrosion, NOAA decided to retire her early.[15] She was decommissioned on 14 December 2020.[14]
References
editNotes
edit- ^ SemperParatus.com U.S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) by Noun Name: Nantucket to Zinnia and Unnamed Lightships
- ^ a b c NOAA Release 2004-R836 NOAA SHIP HI’IALAKAI COMMISSIONED IN HONOLULUArchived 2017-05-07 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Naval Vessel Register.
- ^ a b angelfire.com USCGC Tamaroa Detailed History
- ^ uscg.mil U.S. Coast Guard Alien Migrant Interdiction: Operation Able Manner
- ^ Maritime Administration. Report on Port And Shipping Safety and Environmental Protection. Chapter 4 Archived 2007-07-15 at the Wayback Machine. April 2000.
- ^ hazegray.org World Navies Today: US Navy Vessels Decommissioned Since 1980
- ^ Schrader, Richard K., "USCGC Vindicator: From Spy Ship to Coast Guard Cutter," Sea Classics, November 1, 2000.
- ^ Coast Guard Prepares To Initiate Deep Cuts Top Officer Says "Short-Term Pain" Will Help Service Embark On Proposed $9 Billion Acquisition Project. Jack Dorsey The Virginian - Pilot. Virginian - Pilot. Norfolk, Va.: April 24, 2001. pg. A.1
- ^ Military Sealift Command. 2000 Annual Report.
- ^ a b c d NOAA Ship Hiʻialakai brochure
- ^ a b c noaa.gov NOAA Ship Hiʻialakai Ship Specifications: General Information
- ^ "Shipwreck in Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Added to National Register of Historic Places".
- ^ a b NOAA Marine Operations - Hiʻialakai
- ^ "New Ocean Research Ship Heading To Hawai'i". senate.gov. U.S. Senator for Hawaii Brian Schatz. February 11, 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2024.
Bibliography
edit- Wertheim, Eric, ed. The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World, 15th Edition: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Systems. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59114-955-2. ISSN 1057-4581.
External links
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