Shipyard Upgrades In Action

R/V Sally Ride has successfully completed two science cruises since leaving the shipyard last month. The first involved visiting a research site in the Gulf of Alaska in order to switch out long-term moorings. That cruise off-loaded in Newport, Oregon and the ship then headed to San Diego. Multiple Scripps technicians were onboard for the transit south in order to tie … Read More

Back to Work!

R/V Sally Ride is back in the water after two and half months in a shipyard dry dock in Alameda, California. As you may remember from previous posts (here and here), there was a lot of work done to the ship during that time. Everything on the to-do list has been completed, including the addition of a CTD hangar, a reinforced … Read More

Shipyard Status Report

R/V Sally Ride is entering the last few weeks of a planned shipyard period. Crew members and technicians involved in the process have shared that the ship is almost unrecognizable as work is being done from top to bottom to make it a more efficient and adaptable member of the Scripps fleet.  Click on any of the pictures below for a larger … Read More

Upgrades in the Shipyard

R/V Sally Ride is currently in the shipyard for some upgrades. It was always part of the plan for the new research vessels to spend a few months there at the end of their first year in service. R/V Neil Armstrong, which was delivered to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has been about six months ahead in the whole construction and … Read More

Commemorative Coin

As you know, Sally Ride was America’s first woman in space. And now R/V Sally Ride is the only member of the academic research fleet named after a woman. Carrying her name is an important legacy, and one that we here at Scripps Institution of Oceanography are excited to be a part of.  When the ship was being built in Anacortes, a bronze coin … Read More

Back to the Shipyard

R/V Sally Ride has entered a shipyard period as it ends its first year in service. Upgrades and refits will be made over the next few months. After that, it will be back to science cruises! Follow along here for photos from the shipyard, including dry dock, where the ship is set up on blocks out of the water so … Read More

All That Water

Aboard R/V Sally Ride, we’re always studying the ocean as part of the science – but that’s not the only water we have to be concerned with. Thankfully for those in the science party, the engineering crew takes care of all the rest (in addition to keeping the ship’s propulsion and electricity up and running). The ship is capable of making … Read More

The Ever-Changing Lab

The lab space on R/V Sally Ride is on the main deck, just forward of the fantail. There is a “wet” lab and a “dry” lab, separated by a door. The wet lab connects right to the staging bay via water-tight door, where equipment to be deployed over the side of the ship can be stored when it’s not being used. Sampling can … Read More

WIRED tour and unanswered questions

Scripps Ships Operations director Bruce Appelgate gave WIRED magazine a tour of the R/V Sally Ride while it was docked in San Francisco.  It was done via Facebook Live, so there were a lot of questions asked in the comments. The videos below cover many of them, and more have been covered already in other blog posts, but I’m going … Read More

Making it Official

The christening ceremony for R/V Sally Ride took place back on August 9, 2014. It’s tradition for a ship to be christened (given its name) as soon as it hits the water for the first time – and that a bottle of champagne is broken across her bow as part of the ceremony. This important role was performed by Dr. … Read More