NOAAS Ronald H. Brown

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NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown

The NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

Her keel was laid in February, 1995; she was launched on May 30, 1996 at Halter Marine's Moss Point shipyard in Pascagoula; and commissioned on July 19 in Charleston. She was NOAA's first newly built oceanographic research vessel in 17 years.

The Brown is named for former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who was killed in a plane crash while in office. At 274 feet (83 m) in length, she is the largest vessel in the NOAA fleet. The hull of the ship is ice-hardened to allow for Arctic and Antarctic research. The ship has a total of 59 bunk spaces and can seat 30 at a time in its mess room. The ship also includes a 4-bed hospital facility.She carries a complement of six NOAA Corps officers, including one medical officer, 20 crew and a maximum of 32 scientists.

The deck equipment features three winches, two fixed cranes, a portable crane, a hydrographic boom and an A-frame. This equipment gives the Brown a lifting capacity of up to 42,000 pounds (19,050 kg) as well 32,800 feet (10,000 m) of cable that can pull up to 8,100 pounds (3,670 kg). One of the winches is specifically for use with specialty cables such as optical fiber cables or coaxial EM Cable.

As a research vessel, a substantial amount of the ship is dedicated to laboratories. Included in the 4,100 feet² (380 m²) of lab space are a computer/electronics lab, a biochemical lab and a wet lab.

In addition to its state-of-the-art oceanographic sampling capabilities, the Brown has instrumentation to study the atmosphere, including a Doppler radar for a better understanding of storm dynamics at sea. This combined atmospheric and oceanographic sampling capability makes the ship unique in the world's research fleet. Scientists aboard the vessel study critical environmental issues across the world's oceans. She has participated in many national and international projects since 1997.^[1]

The Ronald H. Brown and three other research ships were all built to the same basic design. The three sister ships are R/V Thomas G. Thompson (UW), R/V Roger Revelle (Scripps) and R/V Atlantis (Woods Hole).