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Next in Line

January 28, 2014

When it joins the Institution’s fleet late in 2014, the newly-built R/V Neil Armstrong will be the twentieth ship operated by WHOI. In the early years of ocean science research when few ships were built specifically for that task, WHOI’s research vessels often came with a history of their own. Among them were Anton Bruun, which once served as President Truman’s yacht; the sailing vessel Caryn, rumored to have been built for smuggling opium in the late 1920s; Bear, once a WWII troop carrier in the South Pacific; and Aries, a 93-foot ketch given to WHOI by tobacco tycoon R.J. Reynolds.(Photo by Gary McGrath, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)