RV ''Ernest Holt'' (GY591) was a

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...

research vessel A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated ...

that was operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (United Kingdom) - Directorate of Fisheries, now known as the

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) is an executive agency of the United Kingdom government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). It carries out a wide range of research, advisory, consulta ...

(Cefas). Research aboard the RV ''Ernest Holt'' around Bear Island (Norway) in the Arctic established an important link between fishable cod concentrations and water temperatures. In her later years she carried out some of the first exploratory voyages to the deep water grounds of the continental slope to the west of Britain. Being too deep in draught for convenient operation from

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the most easterly UK settlement, it is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and sou ...

and being crewed and operated primarily for the arctic fisheries based on Humberside, RV ''Ernest Holt'' worked from Grimsby, although managed and directed from the Fisheries Laboratory

. In 1971 she was renamed "SWITHA" and became a Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency vessel. She was wrecked on 31 January 1980 off Inchkeith Island in the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meani ...

and subsequently blown up as a hazard to shipping.'Shipspotting.com - SWITHA - IMO 5105817 http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2424128&sort_comments=2

Construction

During 1946, the vessel was designed by Mr V Gray of

Cochrane & Sons Cochrane Shipbuilders was a shipbuilder at Selby. History Founded by Andrew Cochrane at Beverley, England in 1884, establishing Cochrane & Sons in 1896. The ship building company moved to Selby in 1898. During the Second World War the company ...

, Selby. The commercial trawler "St. Bartholomew" (later Stella Arcturus) had been proven to behave well in bad weather on her maiden commercial voyage and hence RV ''Ernest Holt'' was built along similar lines. The new ship was launched at Selby (Yorkshire) on 9 June 1948, by Mrs A.T.A Dobson, wife of the then Fisheries Secretary. In naming RV ''Ernest Holt'' it was thought fitting to commemorate the pioneer naturalist of North Sea fisheries investigations

Ernest William Lyons Holt Ernest William Lyons Holt or E. W. L. Holt (17 October 1864 – 10 June 1922) was an eminent English marine naturalist and biologist who specialized in ichthyology, the study of fish. His work helped lay a scientific foundation for the fis ...

, whose work at Grimsby in the 1890s had provided the foundation of fisheries science. The first Master of the RV ''Ernest Holt'' was Captain W.R. Ingham, with a crew complement of 26. The planned complement of research staff was two naturalists and two technicians, but it was found necessary to modify this to three naturalists and one or two technicians. Trials were carried out in the Humber in December 1948 and the ship sailed from Grimsby on her maiden voyage on 4 January 1949.

Service as a fisheries research vessel

Fisheries survey logbooks from RV ''Ernest Holt'' research campaigns in the 1950s have now been fully digitized by scientists at the

, revealing how cod in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

and around Bear Island (Norway) responded to changing seawater temperatures during the 20th century.Townhill BL, Maxwell D, Engelhard GH, Simpson SD, Pinnegar JK (2015) Historical Arctic Logbooks Provide Insights into Past Diets and Climatic Responses of Cod. PLoS ONE 10(9): e0135418. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135418 Datasets collected aboard the RV ''Ernest Holt'' were instrumental in the ground-breaking book ''On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations''Beverton, R. J. H., and Holt, S. J. 1957. On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations. Fishery Investigations Series II. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, London. 533 pp. written by Ray Beverton and

Sidney Holt Sidney J. Holt (28 February 1926 – 22 December 2019) was a British biologist who was a founder of fisheries science. He was best known for the book ''On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations'' which he published with Ray Beverton in 1957.Be ...

in 1957.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ernest Holt 1948 ships Ships of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science Ships of the United Kingdom Ships built on the Humber Ships built in Selby Research vessels of the United Kingdom

Construction

Service as a fisheries research vessel

See also

References