USNS Vindicator

NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334) off Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, sometime between 2001 and 2009
History
United States
Name	USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3)
Namesake	A vindicator is someone who justifies something by providing evidence or who maintains or defends a cause against opposition
Operator	Military Sealift Command
Ordered	26 September 1980
Builder	Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, Tacoma, Washington
Laid down	14 April 1983
Launched	1 June 1984
Acquired	21 November 1984 (delivered)
In service	21 November 1984
Out of service	30 June 1993
Stricken	30 June 1993
Identification	IMO number: 8835619
Fate	Transferred to U.S. Coast Guard 30 June 1993
Acquired	Transferred from U.S. Coast Guard 2001
Fate	Transferred to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration October 2001
United States
Name	USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3)
Namesake	Previous name retained
Acquired	By lease from U.S. Navy 30 June 1993
Commissioned	20 May 1994
Decommissioned	19 August 1994
Notes	In reserve 1994-1999
Recommissioned	24 August 1999
Decommissioned	1 May 2001
Homeport	Norfolk, Virginia
Identification	IMO number: 8835619 Call sign NODF[1]
Fate	Returned to U.S. Navy 2001
United States
Name	NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334)
Namesake	Hiʻialakai is a Hawaiian word meaning "embracing pathways to the sea" and holding a deeper meaning of "guiding leaders of the seas"[2]
Acquired	Transferred from U.S. Navy October 2001
Commissioned	3 September 2004
Decommissioned	14 December 2020
Sponsored by	Margaret "Maggie" Awamura Inouye and Isabella A. Abbott
Homeport	Pearl Harbor, Hawaiʻi
Identification	IMO number: 8835619 MMSI number: 368926089 Callsign: WTEY
General characteristics (as U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship)
Class and type	Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship
Displacement	2,285 long tons
Length	224 ft (68 m)
Beam	43 ft (13 m)
Draft	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m)
Propulsion	Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers
Speed	11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Crew	33 (15 U.S. Navy personnel, 15 civilians)
Armament	none
General characteristics (as U.S. Coast Guard Cutter)
Type	Medium endurance cutter
Length	224 ft (68 m)
Beam	43 ft (13 m)
Propulsion	Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers
Speed	11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) (cruising)
General characteristics (as NOAA oceanographic research ship)
Class and type	ex-U.S. Navy Stalwart-class oceanographic research ship
Tonnage	1,486 GT 786 DWT
Displacement	1,650 tons (light) 2,285 tons (full load)
Length	224 ft (68 m)
Beam	43 ft (13 m)
Draft	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m)
Depth	20 ft (6.1 m)
Installed power	1,600 horsepower (2.1 megawatts)
Propulsion	Diesel-electric: Two General Electric 800-hp (597-kw) diesel engines, twin fixed-pitch propellers
Speed	11.5 knots (21.3 km/h; 13.2 mph) (emergency) 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) (cruising)
Range	20,232 nautical miles (37,470 km; 23,283 mi)
Endurance	35 days
Boats & landing craft carried	Up to five small work boats
Complement	28 (6 NOAA Corps officers, 3 licensed engineers, and 19 other crew) plus up to 22 scientists
Sensors and processing systems	Multibeam sonar; echosounder

USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) was a United States Navy Stalwart-class modified tactical auxiliary general ocean surveillance ship that was in service from 1984 to 1993. Vindicator then served in the United States Coast Guard from 1994 to 2001 as the medium endurance cutter USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3). From 2004 to 2020, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334).

Vindicator was ordered on 26 September 1980. She was laid down on 14 April 1983 by the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, at Tacoma, Washington, and was launched on 1 June 1984. Tacoma Boatbuilding delivered her to the U.S. Navy on 21 November 1984.

The Navy placed the ship in non-commissioned service in the Military Sealift Command on the day of her delivery as USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3). Designed to collect underwater acoustical data in support of Cold War anti-submarine warfare operations using Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) sonar equipment, Vindicator spent the final years of the Cold War searching for Soviet Navy submarines.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of December 1991 brought the Cold War to an end, the requirement for such search operations declined. On 30 June 1993, the Navy removed Vindicator from service and simultaneously struck her from the Naval Vessel Register and leased her to the United States Coast Guard.^[3]

With their own ship moored at the United States Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay in Baltimore, Maryland, from June to October 1993, the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard medium endurance cutter USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166) reported aboard Vindicator and manned her during her Coast Guard acceptance trials.^[4] Vindicator was commissioned into Coast Guard service on 20 May 1994 as the medium endurance cutter USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3) for use in counternarcotics operations, based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving as a "mother ship" for 38-foot (12 m) pursuit boats used to intercept drug smugglers. During 1994, manned by many former crew members of the by-then-decommissioned Tamaroa, Vindicator took part in Operation Able Manner, a joint U.S. Coast Guard-U.S. Navy effort to interdict would-be Haitian migrants to the United States.^[4][5] She was decommissioned on 19 August 1994 and placed in reserve at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay.

After five years of inactivity, Vindicator was recommissioned on 24 August 1999. At one point, she was under evaluation to be a test ship for a Marine Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Demonstration Module.^[6][7] The Coast Guard found that Vindicator and five other Stalwart-class ships the Navy had transferred were inadequate as Coast Guard cutters because of their inability to carry helicopters and low top speed, and budget limitations prevented the Coast Guard from addressing these shortfalls.^[8] Budget cuts in early 2001 resulted in termination of the lease, and she was decommissioned again on 1 May 2001 and returned to the Military Sealift Command.^[9][10]

In October 2001, Vindicator was transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). After a $4,000,000 conversion into an oceanographic research ship, she was commissioned into NOAA service on 3 September 2004 as NOAAS Hiʻialakai (R 334), co-sponsored by Margaret "Maggie" Awamura Inouye, the wife of United States Senator from Hawaiʻi Daniel Inouye, and University of Hawaiʻi Professor Emerita Isabella A. Abbott.^[2][11]

Hiʻialakai was equipped with multibeam sonar and echosounder equipment for underwater mapping work. She was well equipped to support both shallow- and deep-water dive projects. She was able to carry up to five small work boats for transporting divers to and from working areas, multiple dive lockers to store scientific gear and equipment, a membrane Nitrox fill system for filling dive tanks, and a three-person, double-lock decompression chamber.^[11][12]

Hiʻialakai had a wet laboratory with a scientific freezer, a dry laboratory, and a computer and electronics laboratory. On deck, she had a 46-foot (14 m) telescoping boom with a lifting capacity of 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg) at full extension, an A-frame with a maximum safe working load of 22,000 pounds (10,000 kg), and a J-frame with a maximum safe working load of 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg). Her normal complement of boats consisted of a 29-foot (8.8 m) boat with a 455-horsepower (339 kW) diesel motor and a capacity of 10 people, a 26-foot (7.9 m) boat with a 210-horsepower (160 kW) diesel motor and a capacity of 10 people, a 17-foot (5.2 m) boat with a 90-horsepower (67 kW) outboard motor and a capacity of five people, and an 18-foot (5.5 m) SOLAS-approved rescue boat with a 90-horsepower (67 kW) outboard motor and a capacity of seven people.^[12]

In addition to her crew of 28, Hiʻialakai could accommodate up to 22 scientists.^[12]

Hiʻialakai was home-ported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaiʻi. She operated in the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Insular Area, which includes American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam.^[11] Her first cruise in NOAA service – to support assessment, monitoring, and mapping in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at Nihoa, Necker Island (also known as Mokumanamana), the French Frigate Shoals (also known as Kānemilohaʻi), the Gardner Pinnacles (also known as Pūhāhonu), Maro Reef (also known as Nalukākala), Laysan (also known as Kauō), Lisianski Island (also known as Papa‘āpoho) and the surrounding Neva Shoals, Pearl and Hermes Atoll (also known as Holoikauaua), Kure Atoll (also known as Mokupāpapa and as Ocean Island), and Midway Atoll (also known as Pihemanu Kauihelani) – began on 13 September 2004.^[2]

Hiʻialakai supported the research of NOAA's National Ocean Service, National Marine Sanctuaries, National Marine Fisheries Service, and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, as well as that of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Hawaiʻi. She conducted coral reef ecosystem mapping, bio-analysis assessments, coral reef health studies, and fish stock studies. Her coral reef mapping supported a mapping effort initiated in 2002 by the United States Coral Reef Task Force. She carried out most of her dive-intensive operations in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which became the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, in 2006.^[11]

In 2008, maritime archeologists embarked aboard Hiʻialakai discovered the wreck of a sailing ship in the French Frigate Shoals which turned out to be that of the 19th-century whaling ship Two Brothers.^[13]

Hiʻialakai made her longest cruise — a 103-day voyage — during a 2015 assessment of coral reefs in the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. Her divers conducted 3,500 dives, using all three of her boats, during this voyage.^[14]

After discovering that Hiʻialakai was suffering from extensive corrosion, NOAA decided to retire her early.^[15] She was decommissioned on 14 December 2020.^[14]

• Wertheim, Eric, ed. The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World, 15th Edition: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Systems. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59114-955-2. ISSN 1057-4581.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3).

• Naval Vessel Register: Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) Ocean Surveillance Ship
• NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive: USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3) NOAA Hi'Ialakai (R-334)
• NOAA Ship Hi'Ialakai