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How Far We’ve Come

On a warm spring day in 1970, Capt. Emerson Hiller sailed R/V Knorr into Woods Hole for the first time (and did a smart pirouette to demonstrate the ship’s handling). Over the 44 years that followed, the ship traveled more than 1.3 million miles in support of science—a distance equal to more than 50 trips around the globe. Along the way, Knorr and its many talented scientists and crew probed the inner workings of the world’s ocean, made landmark discoveries about life on Earth, revealed the final resting place of RMS Titanic, and even helped mariners in need. Today, Knorr (now named Rio Tecolutla) sails away from Woods Hole for the final time, but the mark it leaves on WHOI and on ocean science will not soon fade.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)