At a town hall on 12 December at AGU’s Annual Meeting 2024 in Washington, D.C., the ocean sciences community gathered to discuss the future of U.S. ocean research capabilities. The presenters were clear: Decommissioning of research vessels and a lack of funding for new ones have put ocean scientists in the United States at a global disadvantage. Since the 1980s, the country’s Academic Research Fleet has dwindled from 34 vessels to 17.
“If we keep at that pace, we’re not going to even be in the conversation for seagoing ocean science,” said Paula Bontempi, dean of the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. “That’s a problem,” she said.
National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, though, has allowed for construction of a small group of new ocean research vessels. Scientists hope these Regional Class Research Vessels (RCRVs), named for their planned use close to U.S. coasts, will play a small part in bolstering U.S. ocean research capabilities.
Joining the Fleet
The University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), which is funded by NSF, NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), oversees the operation and outfitting of the 17 vessels currently in the U.S. Academic Research Fleet. These vessels, owned by NSF, ONR, and U.S. universities and laboratories, are a subset of the U.S. Federal Oceanographic Fleet, which includes vessels owned and operated by NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and EPA.
Vessels in the Academic Research Fleet are available to the academic science community for ocean research projects, whereas many of the other vessels in the Federal Oceanographic Fleet have specific missions conducted by the agencies who own the vessels and are not as accessible to academic scientists.
Beginning 15 years ago, subgroups and committees within UNOLS and federal agencies charged with planning for the future of ocean sciences recognized a need for a group of vessels with a wide range of scientific capabilities that could operate in coastal waters and on a lighter budget than some of the fleet’s much larger vessels, said Clare Reimers, an ocean biogeochemist at Oregon State University (OSU) who was also a member of the UNOLS Fleet Improvement Committee at the time. Inspired, Reimers spearheaded a proposal to NSF for OSU to lead the development of three new vessels.
Funding for the design, construction, and transition into operation of the three identical RCRVs—R/V Taani, R/V Narragansett Dawn, and R/V Gilbert R. Mason—has been granted in increments, beginning in 2013.
OSU has led the design phase and is leading the construction and transition to operation of all three vessels. The university will operate the Taani along the U.S. West Coast. The University of Rhode Island, as part of the East Coast Oceanographic Consortium, will operate the Narragansett Dawn along the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf-Caribbean Oceanographic Consortium, including the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) and the University of Southern Mississippi, will operate the Gilbert R. Mason in the Gulf of Mexico.
All three vessels are being built by Bollinger Shipyards in Houma, La.
The new vessels will replace three vessels: R/V Oceanus, a now-retired vessel once operated by Oregon State University; R/V Endeavor, which is currently operated by the University of Rhode Island; and R/V Point Sur, an aged ship brought out of retirement in 2015 and currently operated by the University of Southern Mississippi.
The new RCRVs are “going to be extraordinarily capable vessels,” Reimers said. The OSU design team plans to include many features that were not available in earlier regional vessels in the fleet, such as a propulsion and navigation system that allows the ship to hold position “on a dime,” she said.
Each vessel will also have a suite of sonar instruments for deep- and shallow-water seafloor mapping, oceanic and atmospheric sensors that collect data available to shore-based researchers in real time, and coring capabilities. Many of the instruments are new to any class of research vessel and are the most advanced of their kind, Reimers said.
The Taani is about 90% finished and is currently in the water. Shipyard workers are installing its electrical system, after which its major instrumentation will be tested and certified and it will be delivered to OSU. Reimers said she expects delivery in 2026.
“There is a lot of science that is waiting in the wings for these new vessels, and their arrival could not come a minute too soon.”
Construction of the Narragansett Dawn is not far behind—its hull is complete, but its interior needs work, from insulation to electrical equipment to an HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning) system. The Gilbert R. Mason is still in pieces that need to be joined. Reimers expects delivery of the Narragansett Dawn to the University of Rhode Island about 5–6 months after delivery of the Taani and delivery of the Gilbert R. Mason to LUMCON and the University of Southern Mississippi to follow 5–6 months after that.
After construction is completed, each vessel will undergo a year of final outfitting, trials, and training with their crews and then will be available to the scientific community.
“There is a lot of science that is waiting in the wings for these new vessels, and their arrival could not come a minute too soon,” said Leila Hamdan, a marine microbial ecologist and associate vice president for research for coastal operations at the University of Southern Mississippi and principal investigator for the operation of the Gilbert R. Mason.
“The expectation is that these vessels will be very important for ocean science for the next 30, 40, maybe even 50 years. And that’s worth waiting for,” Reimers said.
Investments in Ocean Research
The new RCRVs will “fill a big gap,” said Deborah Bronk, a marine scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and past chair of the UNOLS Council. But another crisis looms in the global class of research vessels—those vessels meant to have global range and carry larger, multidisciplinary teams.
Three global class vessels in the U.S. Academic Research Fleet (R/V Thomas G. Thompson, R/V Roger Revelle, and R/V Atlantis) have passed or are nearing the end of their original 30-year design lives, and underwent mid-life refits to ensure they remain useful to scientists. Now, the three vessels are projected to be in service until 2036, 2041, and 2042, respectively. But the long process of finding funding, designing a vessel, and finally making it fit for service means the time to begin replacement initiatives for global class vessels is now, said Doug Russell, executive secretary of UNOLS, in an email.
The ocean sciences community is also facing the loss of the JOIDES Resolution, a global class research ship designed for deep-ocean drilling. The JOIDES was operated by Texas A&M University on behalf of the International Ocean Discovery Program and funded by NSF before it was retired from the U.S. fleet in 2024.
“If federal budgets don’t keep pace to enable science, U.S. expertise in ocean science is largely going to continue to dwindle.”
In 2022, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocated for federal funding for oceangoing research, dissolved, leaving ocean scientists “without a voice,” Bronk said. In response, Bontempi, Bronk, Hamdan, and others recently formed the Research and Education Coalition for Ocean Sciences (RECOS), an organization that will advocate for federal funding of ocean sciences.
Though private partnerships may increase ship availability, sustained federal investments in academic oceangoing research are needed for the United States to “maintain any role, let alone leadership, in ocean science and the marine space,” Bontempi wrote in an email.
“If federal budgets don’t keep pace to enable science, U.S. expertise in ocean science is largely going to continue to dwindle,” Bontempi said. “An investment in our ocean enterprise as a country is an investment in our shared future.”
—Grace van Deelen (@GVD__), Staff Writer
12 March 2025: This article was updated to correct Leila Hamdan’s title.
26 March 2025: This article was updated to clarify the service life of three global class research vessels.