NAVOCEANO bids farewell to ship

STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. - The Naval Oceanographic Office has bid farewell to the hydrographic survey ship, the USNS John McDonnell. T-AGS 51, deactivated Wednesday, was named for a former NAVOCEANO commanding officer who later became the first commander of what is now the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, NAVOCEANO's parent command. The 208-foot vessel has traveled the world since late 1991. Each mission was supported by a complement of about 14 NAVOCEANO surveyors and 23 civilian mariners from Naval Oceanographic Detachment 124. It has surveyed the territorial waters of 10 countries, as well as the shallow areas of the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Caribbean Sea, among other large bodies of water. In 20 years the ship collected about 392,500 nautical miles of swath bathymetry and 35,000 nautical miles of side scan sonar imagery, in addition to having charted and verified thousands of navigation hazards. (Source: NNS, 08/26/10)