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From the Archives

March 5, 2015

Research vessels Bear and Atlantis docked at the WHOI pier in 1955. Built during WWII as a troop carrier in the South Pacific, Bear was chartered by the Institution in 1951 and purchased in 1952. The vessel made 192 cruises in the western North Atlantic, venturing as far east as Bermuda until being sold to a New Bedford fisherman and refitted as a scalloper in 1963. The R/V Atlantis was WHOI’s first deep-ocean research vessel. The 142-foot, steel-hulled ship sailed more than 700,000 miles for ocean science until it was sold in 1966. (Photo by Jan Hahn, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)