KA‘IMIMOANA, Hawaiian for Ocean Seeker, was originally built as the U.S. Naval Ship TITAN (T-AGOS 15) in 1989 by Halter Marine in Moss Point, Mississippi. TITAN was operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) as an Ocean Surveillance Ship until her transfer to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on August 31, 1993. Conversion to her present configuration began in May, 1995 at Maritime Contractors, Inc Shipyard in Bellingham, Washington, and she was redelivered to NOAA as KA‘IMIMOANA in April 1996. The vessel is operated by NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. (OMAO) and is homeported in Honolulu, Hawaii.

KA‘IMIMOANA primarily supports the research programs of NOAA's Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) Project. These programs are designed to improve our understanding of the role of the tropical ocean in modifying the world's climate. The ship deploys, recovers, and services deep sea moorings that measure ocean currents, ocean temperatures, and atmospheric variables, throughout the equatorial Pacific Ocean (TAO Array location map). In addition to buoy measurements, which are transmitted in real time to the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in Seattle, the ship measures upper ocean currents, surface salinity, carbon dioxide content, and takes upper air atmospheric soundings while underway. A census of barnacles and marine life that inhabit the recovered moorings and the periodic replacement of undersea hydrophone moorings used to locate undersea spreading centers and hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise is also conducted on an ongoing basis.

Be sure to visit KA‘IMIMOANA's "at sea" website for near real-time images and data from the ship. This site features daily updates of the ship's position & trackline, weather and sea conditions, and a whole lot more.

KA‘IMIMOANA's E-mail address is:

NOAA.Ship.Kaimimoana@noaa.gov

KA‘IMIMOANA's Mail address is:

NOAA Ship KA‘IMIMOANA
No. 1 Sand Island Road
Honolulu, HI 96819-2222

KA‘IMIMOANA's Telephone Numbers