MV Carolyn Chouest

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MV Carolyn Chouest
NR-1 with Carolyn Chouest.jpg
MV Carolyn Chouest with NR-1.
History
Flag of the United States.svgUnited States
NameCarolyn Chouest
Owner Edison Chouest Offshore [1]
Builder North American Shipbuilding Co., Larose, LA
AcquiredJune 1994
In service1994
Identification
StatusCurrently in service
NotesLeased to the Military Sealift Command (MSC), contractor operated and controlled
General characteristics
Type Ocean surveillance ship
Displacement1599 tons
Length238 ft (73 m)
Beam52 ft (16 m)
Draft17 ft (5.2 m)
Installed power2 × 12-cylinder Caterpillar diesel engines 10,800 hp (8,100 kW)
PropulsionTwo Kort Nozzle variable-pitch propellers
Speed17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)

MV Carolyn Chouest is a chartered support ship for the United States Navy that was originally assigned to the Special Missions Program to support NR-1, the deep submergence craft. She towed NR-1 between work areas, served as a floating supply warehouse and provided quarters for extra crew until the NR-1 was removed from service in 2008.

Contents

Since the 2010s the ship has been used to support American special forces units in the Pacific region. [2] [3]

Operational history

In 1995, Dr. Robert Ballard used the Carolyn Chouest and its sub the NR-1, to explore the wreck of HMHS Britannic, the sister ship of RMS Titanic, which sank off the coast of Kea, Greece while serving as a hospital ship during World War I. [4]

November 1999, Carolyn Chouest assisted recovery efforts after the EgyptAir Flight 990 airplane crash 60 miles (97 km) south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. She provided underwater mapping of the debris field using the side-scan sonar and recorded underwater video of the site with the ROV Magnum. [5]

February 2002, NR-1 and Carolyn Chouest helped archeologists to chart the USS Monitor, the Navy's first ironclad warship, as she rests 250 feet (76 m) below the sea. [6]

October 2004, Carolyn Chouest helped tow HMCS Chicoutimi back to Faslane, after a fire on board the Canadian submarine killed one crewman and injured two, 100 miles (160 km) off Ireland. [7]

December 2006, the fast-attack submarine, USS Pittsburgh resurfaced during sea trials after a 25-year-old Portsmouth Naval Shipyard employee began having neurological problems. He was safely transferred to Carolyn Chouest and continued to receive treatment from Pittsburgh's corpsman until evacuated by a Coast Guard helicopter. [8]

March 2007, NR-1 and Carolyn Chouest under the direction of oceanographer Robert Ballard began mapping the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary to help scientists determine where early Americans might have lived when, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were nearly 400 feet (120 m) lower than they are today. [9]

In March 3, 2023 Carolyn Chouest joined the North Pacific Arctic Conference off Guam. [10]

Related Research Articles

American submarine <i>NR-1</i> Experimental nuclear submarine

Deep Submergence Vessel NR-1 was a unique United States Navy (USN) nuclear-powered ocean engineering and research submarine, built by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics at Groton, Connecticut. NR-1 was launched on 25 January 1969, completed initial sea trials 19 August 1969, and was home-ported at Naval Submarine Base New London. NR-1 was the smallest nuclear submarine ever put into operation. The vessel was casually known as "Nerwin" and was never officially named or commissioned. The U.S. Navy is allocated a specific number of warships by the U.S. Congress, but Admiral Hyman Rickover avoided using one of those allocations for the construction of NR-1 in order to circumvent the oversight that a warship receives from various bureaus.

The Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (SRP) is the process that the United States Navy uses to dispose of decommissioned nuclear vessels. SRP takes place only at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton, Washington, but the preparations can begin elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ballard</span> Retired US Navy officer and professor of oceanography

Robert Duane Ballard is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is best known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.

USS <i>Thresher</i> (SSN-593) United States Navy submarine (1961–63)

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USS <i>Dolphin</i> (AGSS-555) Submarine of the United States

USS Dolphin (AGSS-555) was a United States Navy diesel-electric deep-diving research and development submarine. She was commissioned in 1968 and decommissioned in 2007. Her 38-year career was the longest in history for a US Navy submarine to that point. She was the Navy's last operational conventionally powered submarine.

USS <i>Grunion</i> Submarine of the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military Sealift Command</span> United States Navy command for logistics

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deep-submergence vehicle</span> Self-propelled deep-diving crewed submersible

A deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) is a deep-diving crewed submersible that is self-propelled. Several navies operate vehicles that can be accurately described as DSVs. DSVs are commonly divided into two types: research DSVs, which are used for exploration and surveying, and DSRVs, which are intended to be used for rescuing the crew of a sunken navy submarine, clandestine (espionage) missions, or both. DSRVs are equipped with docking chambers to allow personnel ingress and egress via a manhole.

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References

  1. ↑ "Chouest". GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 2012-09-28.
  2. ↑ Altman, Howard; Trevithick, Joseph (14 April 2022). "This Is The Shadowy Special Operations Mothership You've Never Heard Of". The Drive. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  3. ↑ Rogoway, Tyler (19 April 2022). "Pentagon Posts Rare Photo Of Navy SEAL-Laden Special Ops Sea Base". The Drive. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Ballard, Robert (28 January 1997). "Titanic's Lost Sister". PBS Nova . Retrieved 2014-02-13.
  5. ↑ Rising, David (20 November 1999). "Robot Maps Wreckage In Crash Area". The Seattle Times . Associated Press . Retrieved 2008-10-14.
  6. ↑ Bilyeu, Braden, JO3 (May 2002). "Carolyn Chouest and NR-1 explore naval history". Military Sealift Command . Retrieved 2008-10-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ "Submarine crew back on dry land". BBC News . 11 October 2004. Retrieved 2008-10-14.
  8. ↑ "Submarine Crewman Medevaced". Coast Guard News. 13 December 2006. Retrieved 2008-10-14.
  9. ↑ Velasquez-Manoff, Moises (14 March 2007). "High-tech undersea search for the first Americans". The Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  10. ↑ "Ship CAROLYN CHOUEST (Offshore Supply Ship) Registered in USA - Vessel details, Current position and Voyage information - IMO 8875384, MMSI 366404000, Call Sign WCP5628". MarineTraffic.com.


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