516 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
C. SHIP CONSTRUCTION 
At the beginning of Fiscal Year 1964, the 
government will be supporting the operations of 
76 oceanographie vessels. During the fiscal 
year, three more will be completed. The FY 
1964 Shipbuilding Program will provide funds 
for 12 ships at a total cost of $47.7 million, an 
increase of about $9.6 million over the FY 1963 
program. This increase will help to correct 
the lag in the oceanographic program caused by 
lack of ships. Table 4 depicts agency shipbuild- 
ing plans for FY 1963 and FY 1964. Table 5 
shows the schedule of construction of ships 
programmed for prior years as well as those 
recommended herein. 
As a result of the activities of the Inter- 
agency Committee on Oceanography, agencies 
have increased their shipbuilding efforts at a 
satisfactory rate. The first influx of new ships 
to the program is just now beginning. Lead time 
from budget submission to actual delivery of the 
ship is about 3 years. Therefore, ships included 
in the FY 1964 program will not be delivered 
before the Spring of 1966. 
In an attempt to cut down on this long lead 
time, agencies have traditionally resorted to the 
expediency of converting older ships for oceano- 
graphic purposes. The use of such conversions 
is admittedly a short term solution suitable only 
for special purposes such as work in the Ant- 
arctic, inshore research, or for certain types 
of biological work. Detailed studies by the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, Navy, and Ships Panel 
of the ICO leave no doubt that conversions are 
a poor substitute for specially designed vessels. 
Conversions are more expensive to operate and 
maintain, are less efficient in carrying out 
modern research experiments, and are much 
less habitable with respect to air conditioning 
for tropical work, space arrangement, and rec- 
reational facilities. The average conversion 
has a life expectancy of only 10 years, com- 
pared with 30 years for new construction, and 
is 50 to 100 per cent more expensive to operate. 
Thus, in the long run, use of converted vessels 
is considerably more expensive than construct- 
ing new ones; even considering the much higher 
first cost. 
The most important objection to conversions 
(and the reason why it is so necessary to replace 
our older ships as soon as possible) is their 
inability to carry out the wide variety of re- 
search and survey activities involved in 
modern-day programs. Old ships designed for 
wartime use are too noisy for modern acoustic 
and seismic experiments, and are too broken 
15 
up with watertight bulkheads to permit efficient 
laboratory arrangements. 
Our modern research ships contain the 
most modern technical equipment available: 
roll stabilization tanks, quiet gas turbines, 
portable instrumentation vans, retractable bow 
propulsion units, and electronic recorder rooms 
to accommodate data processing equipment and 
other instruments of the future. The initial in- 
ventory of equipment for such vessels will in- 
clude gravity meters, magnetometers, electronic 
computers, towed thermistor chains, several 
types of oceanographic winches, Swallow ar--. 
rays for tracking subsurface currents, deep 
echo sounders, hull mounted hydrophone arrays 
for tracking remote controlled vehicles, sali- 
nometers, sound velocity meters, advanced 
navigation equipment, and special equipment for 
meteorological, biological, and seismic work 
at sea. 
To an ever-increasing extent, our new ships 
will record data in digital form and process 
them with electronic computers aboard ship. 
The combination of improved instrumentation 
and rapid data processing gives new vessels 
an order of magnitude greater efficiency than 
older ships. Further, as a result of design for 
quiet operations, they will be able to undertake 
work not possible with older vessels and con- 
versions. 
The proposed shipbuilding program for FY 
1964 will provide five ships to replace older 
ones which will be from 20 to 35 years old 
when the new ships are delivered. Although 
these new ships will have tremendously in- 
creased capabilities over the ships being re- 
placed, the requirement to maintain and expand 
geographical coverage requires a one-for-one 
replacement. 
In addition to the five replacements, seven 
new ships will be funded: one for Ocean Survey, 
a small and large vessel for fishery research, 
two small craft for wire drag work, a vessel 
will be converted for mining research, and the 
committee estimates that one new ship will be 
constructed with NSF funds. The Ocean Survey 
ships will provide the Nation with a new capa- 
bility to survey all of the oceans, recording all 
types of oceanographic data. They will also be 
made available for international expeditions, 
giving increased flexibility to all U. S. coopera- 
tive expeditions with other countries. In addi- 
tion to the ICO program of ship construction, 
several research vessels under 1,000T have 
been provided by the Office of Naval Research 
as a part of its research contracts in order to 
