Tag Archives: RV Thomas G Thompson

RV Thomas G. Thompson

Quite a while back, now, I was down on the shore at Mukilteo when this research ship transited passed the lighthouse.  It was clearly a vessel designed for studying something marine related (unless it was a spy ship) so I decided to check it out.  There is a small fleet of these vessels operated by the Office of Naval Research.  They put operation of the ships out to tender and this one was won by the University of Washington.

The ship is named after the guy that founded UW’s Oceanographic lab in the 30s.  it spends over 300 days a year at sea, so I guess they get plenty of use out of it.  Originally, she would have been scheduled out of service by this year but a big refit was carried out in a local Seattle shipyard, Vigor, a few years back so she should be good until the late 2030s.