RV ''Rachel Carson'' is a research vessel owned and operated by the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

's Center for Environmental Science, named in honor of the marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson. The 81-foot aluminum-hulled vessel is an extended and modified Challenger class fast research vessel, designed by marine architect Roger Long. It is equipped with twin 1,200 horsepower diesel engines and water jet drives which give a maximum speed of 24 knots. A

dynamic positioning system Dynamic positioning (DP) is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors and gyrocompass ...

automatically maintains the vessel's position. The ship was built by Hike Metal Products of

Wheatley, Ontario Wheatley is a community in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, within the municipality of Chatham-Kent. It lies about east of Leamington. Nearby parks include Two Creeks Conservation Area, which has 15 km of hiking and bicycling paths, Kopegaron ...

, at a cost of $4.6 million, and christened by

Katie O'Malley Catherine Curran O'Malley (born August 18, 1962) is an American jurist who served as Baltimore City District Court judge. She is the wife of Martin O'Malley, a former governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore, as well as a 2016 presidential c ...

on November 16, 2008, at

Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

. The ''Rachel Carson'' has operated in

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

since early 2009, teaching estuarine sampling techniques, carrying out water quality surveys,

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

collection, box coring operations, and deploying instrument packages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rachel Carson (2008) 2008 ships Environmental science Research vessels of the United States Ships built in Ontario University of Maryland, College Park RV 2008