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TAGS 45 Waters
Oceanographic Survey Ship

The USNS WATERS was acquired for multi-purpose surveys, and became operational at the end of FY1996. Built for the Military Sealift Command (MSC) at a cost of $104.4 million, the Waters replaced the USNS Mizar (T-AGOR 11). Mizar was special-mission ocean survey / "ocean engineering" ship which undertook a variety of covert "ocean engineering" missions in support of surveillance operations and the recovery of sunken hardware of interest to the intelligence community. Funding for that Waters's operations was reduced soon after her completion, and the ships was been converted to support additional missile range instrumentation and submarine navigation research support missions.

Survey Ships gather data which provides much of the military's information on the ocean environment. Oceanographic and hydrographic survey ships are used to study the world's oceans. The collected data helps to improve technology in undersea warfare and enemy ship detection. The oceanographic and hydrographic survey ships' multibeam, wide-angle precision sonar systems make it possible to continuously chart a broad strip of ocean floor. Military Sealift Command's Special Missions program supports worldwide oceanographic programs with ships which perform acoustical, biological, physical and geophysical surveys.

Specifications

Builder Avondale
Power Plant
Length Overall Length: 442 ft
Beam Extreme Beam: 69 ft
Draft Maximum Navigational Draft: 21 ft
Displacement Full Displacement: 12208 tons
Dead Weight: 12208 tons
Capacity
Speed knots ( mph)
Crew
Aircraft

Ships

Name Number Builder Homeport Ordered Commissioned Decommissioned
Waters TAGS 45 Avondale Atlantic 04 Apr 1990 26 May 1993

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Maintained by Robert Sherman
Originally created by John Pike
Updated Saturday, January 23, 1999 7:26:13 PM