MSC launches newest oceanographic ship USNS Mary Sears
Distinguished guests for Saturday's side launching included speaker Rear Adm. Robert Clark, commander, Military Sealift Command Atlantic, and ship's co-sponsors Leila Sears, the late Mary Sears' half-sister, and Alice Rivlin, former vice chair, Federal Reserve Board.
Also in attendance was Rear Adm. Ken Barbour, commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanographic Command.
USNS Mary Sears will join fellow MSC oceanographic survey ships USNS Pathfinder, USNS Bowditch, USNS Sumner, USNS Henson and USNS Bruce C. Heezen in performing physical, chemical and biological oceanography; environmental investigations; marine geology and geophysics and bathymetric gravimetric, and magnetometric surveying for the Naval Oceanographic Office.
Though the Navy has named eleven other ships for women, this is the first oceanographic ship to be named for a female. It is a most appropriate honor. Sears a pioneer in oceanographic research and served as one of the first female oceanographic Naval officers in the second World War.
Because women were not allowed to go to sea aboard research ships until later years, Sears made a lasting name for herself in editing and publishing marine science books and journals. She was the founding editor of the professional journal Deep Sea Research and edited benchmark scientific books Oceanography and Oceanography: The Past.
Sears retired from the Navy as a commander in 1963. She worked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute until 1970. She died in 1997.
USNS Mary Sears is expected to join the operational Military Sealift Command fleet in late 2001. She is a multi-mission vessel, capable of performing both deep ocean and shallow water surveys.
Like her fellow Pathfinder class survey ships, Mary Sears will be operated by MSC civilian contract mariners and host
oceanographic research personnel from the Naval Oceanographic Office.
Military Sealift Command is the ocean transportation provider for the Department of Defense. The command, part of the U.S. Navy, operates more than 110 active ships around the world. Ship missions vary from the transport and afloat prepositioning of defense cargo; to underway replenishment and other direct support to Navy ships at sea; to at-sea data collection for the U.S. military and other U.S. government agencies. (FROM MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS).
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