Vessels and Vehicles
 |
R/V Western Flyer is a small water-plane area twin hull (SWATH) oceanographic research vessel measuring 35.6m long and 16.2m wide. It was designed and constructed for MBARI to serve as the support vessel for ROV Tiburon. Her missions include the Monterey Bay as well as extended cruises to Hawaii, Gulf of California and the Pacific Northwest. |
 |
R/V Point Lobos conducts daily missions in Monterey Bay about four days per week. She has also completed extended missions along the California coast. This 33.5m vessel mainly supports ROV Ventana, as well as hydrocasts, video transects, and deployment and recovery of scientific instruments. |
 |
R/V Zephyr is the primary support vessel for MBARI's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) program. Donated in 2001 by the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, this 26m vessel also maintains environmental moorings, collects time series data along the California Current, and supports scuba divers as they study near-shore habitats. |
 |
ROV Ventana is a hydraulic vehicle that was built for MBARI in 1988 by International Submarine Engineering. The specifications for Ventana were developed by David Packard and the original core group of scientists and engineers at MBARI. The vehicle can dive to 1500m and includes a standard suite of instruments, cameras, data collection sensors, a high definition camera, and animal collection devices. Since 1988, ROV Ventana has completed over 2500 dives. |
 |
ROV Doc Ricketts is MBARI's next generation ROV developed at SMD. The system breaks new ground in providing an integrated unmanned submersible research platform, with many powerful features providing efficient, reliable and precise sampling and data collection in a wide range of missions. |
 |
DMO operates the Dorado AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). The AUV is deployed weekly in the Monterey Bay for CTD and other midwater instrumentation. The AUV can be configured with modular sections to add battery capability and other scientific sensor options. |