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A Very Rare Moment

November 21, 2012

For the first time in recent memory, WHOI’s two large research vessels, Knorr and Atlantis, sit side-by-side during a scheduled maintenance period in Detyen’s Shipyard in Charleston, S.C. During dry dock periods, which occur twice every five years, the ships are inspected, their hulls cleaned and painted, and their operating systems fine-tuned. It’s very rare for the ships’s maintenance periods to coincide, and even rarer that the ships would be in the same part of the world for scheduled maintenance. If all goes as planned, Knorr should be home in Woods Hole for the holidays, and then off to Cape Town, South Africa, for a research cruise at the start of the new year. Atlantis, the support vessel for the submersible Alvin, will remain at the shipyard a bit longer so work can be completed on an enhanced launch and recovery system for the newly upgraded sub.(Photo by Dutch Wegman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)