MBARI Sets Sail Aboard a New Research Vessel

Earlier this year, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) welcomed to its fleet R/V David Packard, a next-generation research vessel more than 15 years in the making. Aptly named after MBARI's late founder, the vessel has a significant remit to fill, with demanding technical capabilities and scientific research goals. At its core, the vessel needed to be able to launch and recover MBARI's six-ton remotely operated vehicle (ROV). More specifically, MBARI defined multiple specific scientific capabilities, like launching and recovering autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), conducting mooring deployments off the stern, and collecting conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) measurements.

Preliminary phases

"Around 2010, the dialogue began of what would a new research vessel platform look like and what the requirements needed to be," said Kaya Johnson, director of marine operations at MBARI. "It's a lot of effort to build a new ship. It took some time to get everyone together and to put together the big plan. Ultimately, we decided to partner with naval architecture firm Glosten and Freire Shipyard in Vigo, Spain. And from there, we put together a plan."

"Working in another country always has some challenges, but it's a great group of folks and they have a specialty in research vessels. They had a lot of insight and experience, which is very valuable as research vessels are quite unique and custom," added Johnson. "It went quite well. We're very happy with the design, the quality of the construction and the timeline to build the vessel."

R/V David Packard was not Johnson's first time working with a research vessel, following previous experience as a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) managing a fleet of about 20 small research vessels. From there, he worked as marine superintendent at Oregon State University overseeing their R/V Oceanus. At MBARI, his role interacts with other vessels, such as Rachel Carson and R.B. Paragon, two ROVs, and a fleet of AUVs. Having joined MBARI about a year and a half ago, Johnson's involvement with David Packard focused on the delivery of the vessel and getting it operational.

Defining requirements

Designing and building a research vessel is no small feat, and David Packard is no exception.

"We had a number of challenges to deal with refining what the core requirements of the vessel were," explained Johnson. "We had many meetings with the science and engineering teams and wanted to add more capabilities from our previous vessel, R/V Western Flyer. We wanted to be able to launch and recover AUVs and robots, and we wanted a larger deck where we could do general oceanographic work."

"However," Johnson added, "we have a very small harbor in Los Angeles, so we had to adhere to the constraints of what could fit in our harbor. But we were able to strike that balance where we have a lot of general oceanographic capabilities, we're able to operate our ROV, and we still fit in our harbor."

David Packard weighs about 1,200 tons, is 50 meters long and 12.8 meters wide. It's diesel electric, with two main azimuth propulsors at 500 kW. The power plant is based in a DC grid package supplied by ABB with three gensets of 640 ekW. Its transit speed is typically around 10 knots but varies during research activities. Its range is about 4,000 nautical miles and the vessel can stay out at sea for up to three weeks with 30 people living and working on board.

"The vessel arrangement is divided into machinery and technical spaces below the main deck where the engine, drive, auxiliary machinery, main winch, stabilizers and forward thruster rooms are distributed, as well as other technical areas," explained Luis Santos Orden, technical manager at Freire Shipyard. "The main deck is where working and common spaces are distributed. In the aft, there is a full beam working deck with an A frame. The deck is prepared to store and attach containers or other loose equipment. Moving forward, in the center of the main deck, is the hangar, surrounded by the different equipped laboratories: wet lab, auxiliary lab and ROV control room. Then, galley, mess room and provision stores are placed forward."

Within two decks of accommodation, there are also the CTD winch and frame, a winch control room, the main crane, rescue boat and emergency genset. Above this is the pilot house with the main console and 360-degree vision.

"The ROV requires a very large hangar. It requires a winch below the main deck, which has 5,000 meters of one-inch diameter umbilical on it. It requires a huge control room with a whole bank of monitors and a pilot, a co-pilot and a chief scientist to sit there and run it. It's a huge operation and a huge investment into the capability of the vessel," said Will Moon, principal naval architect at Glosten. Moon served as design lead of the David Packard and later as project manager during the construction period at Freire's site in Spain.

"I like to say when you're designing a tugboat, you first figure out how big do the engines need to be to do the project? And then I wrap a boat around that. And in this case, it's, how big does this whole launch and recovery system and the winch need to be? Where does that need to go in the vessel? And then everything else fits around that whole thing."

Getting underway

With the vessel in hand, MBARI can take to the seas, pushing the envelope of deep-sea exploration. "This new platform will allow us to go further and collaborate with other partners throughout the globe and try new things that some other institutions don't have that flexibility to do," Johnson remarked. "It'll be exciting to see what we can do and what the vessel is capable of."

Since delivery in March, David Packard has embarked on three scientific and engineering missions: two mapping trips and one that prioritized CTD samples. "There's been a lot of excitement. People are really interested in our new ship, what capabilities it has and new technology that's integrated into it."

"Coming up soon, we'll be doing our very first ROV dive. We're really excited about that," he added. "In the future, we'll hopefully try to do some expeditions and go beyond the Monterey Bay area and take our lessons and technologies to other places around the globe."