NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal research vessel that will help update nautical charts on the East Coast is being commissioned in Virginia.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Ferdinand R. Hassler will join the mapping fleet on Friday during a ceremony in Norfolk. It will be home ported in New Castle, N.H., next spring.
It is the numerical replacement for the Rude (Roodee), which was decommissioned in 2008 after a 41-year-career that included finding wreckage from John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane in 1999. The Hassler will be the second mapping ship on the East Coast.
The $22 million vessel is faster, has a longer range and can stay out to sea more than three times longer than its predecessor.
The ship’s namesake served as the first superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey.
