Defoe-Built Research Vessel Knorr Deserves a Medal For Its Performance
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Research Vessel Knorr cruises the world from its home port at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts.
Dr. Robert Ballard used the Bay City built Knorr to find the Titanic in 1985 after 73 years.
The Research Vessel Knorr, that came off the ways at Defoe Shipbuilding Co. here in 1968, found the Titanic in 1985 and is still making world history.
What the exploits of the 280-foot R/V Knorr prove are that middle-sized midwestern towns like Bay City, Michigan, almost written off by the high tech world, can produce world-class products that, like the Energizer bunny, keep on going.
The Defoe firm built hundreds of ships from 1905 until 1977, including many important combat vessels for the U.S. Navy in World War I and II and guided missile destroyers for the Royal Australian Navy in the 1960s. Its former yard on the Saginaw River in downtown Bay City is now occupied by recycling firm OmniSource, formerly H. Hirschfield Sons.
Log on to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (whoi.edu) and you can see exactly where in the world the Knorr is, and what it is doing.This is a 37-year old vessel, still in the prime of life, "wired to the hilt," as one observer states, and sending ROVs (remote operational vehicles) deep into the ocean to make earth-shattering discoveries.
In the past year the Knorr was in the Black Sea off Sinop, Turkey probing the depths for ancient shipwrecks with state-of-the-art remote controlledsubmersibles, high definition undersea cameras, and a high bandwidth telecommunications system.
The Knorr now is at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for maintenance until 29 April when it heads for Bermuda, then Miami, then Panama, and finally to Galapagos Islands on a summer "Darwin" cruise.
The Knorr, operated by the Office of Naval Research, cruises the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans under deep sea expedition leader Dr. Robert D. Ballard at a cost of about $40,000 a day.
Dr. Ballard, a onetime officer in the U.S. Navy who pioneered deep water operations, mapped and videotaped the lost U.S. nuclear submarines Thresher in 1984 and Scorpion in 1985, a project piggybacked with the Titanic find.
Best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic, Dr. Ballard, 62, has succeeded in tracking down numerous other significant shipwrecks, including the German battleship Bismarck, the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown (sunk in the World War II Battle of Midway), and most recently John F. Kennedy's boat, PT-109.
He is a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence and president of the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Connecticut.
Dr. Ballard has conducted morethan a hundred deep-sea expeditions with both manned and unmanned vehicles. A 1977 expedition he led in the Galápagos Rift found hydrothermal vents on the sea floor, along with ecosystems, a major scientific discovery.
Born June 30, 1942, in Wichita, Kansas, Ballard grew up in San Diego. "I grew up wanting to be Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," he said. Ballard has a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from the University of Rhode Island, where he is currently a full-time faculty member.
Dr. Ballard spent 30 years at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, helped develop manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles for marine research. He developed a telecommunications "telepresence" JASON Project, which allowing schoolchildren to view undersea explorations conducted around the globe.
Ballard has 13 honorary degrees and 6 military awards, is a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve and received the National Geographic Society Hubbard Medal in 1996 for"extraordinary accomplishments in coaxing secrets from the world's oceans and engaging students in the wonder of science."
He has published 18 books, numerous scientific papers and many articles in National Geographic magazine. Ballard also has been featured in several National Geographic television programs, including the record-breaking "Secrets of the Titanic."
Ballard's most recent discoveries include the Mediterranean Sea finds of sunken remains of ships along ancient trade routes (1997), two ancient Phoenician ships off Israel, the oldest shipwrecks ever found in deep water (1999), and four 1,500-year-old wooden ships—one almost perfectly preserved—in the Black Sea (2000). Ballard is continuing his Black Sea project, which seeks evidence of a great flood—possibly linked to Noah's Ark—that may have struck the region thousands of years ago.###
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