USNS ''Victorious'' (T-AGOS-19) is a ''Victorious''-class

ocean surveillance ship A spy ship or reconnaissance vessel is a dedicated ship intended to gather intelligence, usually by means of sophisticated electronic eavesdropping. In a wider sense, any ship intended to gather information could be considered a spy ship. Sp ...

which was acquired by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

in 1991 and assigned to the

Military Sealift Command The Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all U ...

(MSC) Special Missions Program.

Built in Morgan City, Louisiana

''Victorious'' was built by McDermott Shipyards,

Morgan City, Louisiana Morgan City is a small city in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States, located in the Acadiana region. The population was 11,472 at the 2020 census. Known for being "right in the middle of everywhere", Morgan City is located southeast of ...

. She was laid down on 12 April 1988 and launched on 3 May 1990 and was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 13 August 1991.

Special program

''Victorious'' was crewed by 19 civilian mariners under the control of the

(MSC) and staffed with five sponsors. She is of a

small waterplane area twin hull A small waterplane area twin hull, better known by the acronym SWATH, is a catamaran design that minimizes hull cross section area at the sea's surface. Minimizing the ship's volume near the surface area of the sea, where wave energy is located ...

(SWATH) design, similar to a

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

, which provides a stable platform for towing the ship's SURTASS

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...

arrays.

Incidents with China

On March 4, 2009, ''Victorious'' was involved in one of a string of incidents between US research ships and

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

ships. While operating in international waters, roughly 120 miles off the coast of mainland China in the

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea, also known as the North Sea, is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. Names It is one of four ...

, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate the entire length of ''Victorious'' several times. The following day, a Chinese Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys of ''Victorious'' at an altitude of about and a range of 500 yards. In May 2009, ''Victorious'' was again harassed by Chinese ships, this time while operating in the

. The Chinese vessels repeatedly approached ''Victorious'' at as close as 30 yards in heavy fog, at one point stopping in its path, forcing ''Victorious'' to stop to avoid a collision.

Notes

References

*
NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive - T-AGOS-19 Victorious
1988 ships Ships built in Morgan City, Louisiana Small waterplane area twin hull vessels Victorious-class ocean surveillance ships Military catamarans {{US-mil-ship-stub

Built in Morgan City, Louisiana

Special program

Incidents with China

See also

Notes

References