The NOAA Ship CHAPMAN, a fisheries research vessel, was officially decommissioned on June 2, 1998, after 19 years of dedicated service to NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and the nation. During her tenure, the CHAPMAN supported a variety of marine resource assessment surveys -- along with related biological and physical oceanographic research -- in the North Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, U.S. East Coast waters and Caribbean.
The CHAPMAN’s decommissioning ceremony was held at its homeport in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ceremony was well attended with representatives from NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, the ship’s crew, family and friends. Dr. Andrew Kemmerer, administrator of NMFS Southeast Region, gave the keynote address.
The CHAPMAN is to be replaced by the NOAA Ship GORDON GUNTER, which is scheduled to complete shipyard modifications and begin operations for the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Centers in late June.
Significant Contributions
The CHAPMAN spent her first four years of service in the North Pacific, supporting NMFS’s Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Centers on myriad projects during the early 1980s. The ship's primary mission was to conduct the annual Bering Sea summer king crab survey that set the fall season’s king crab quota.
In November 1984, the CHAPMAN moved to the Gulf coast, calling Pascagoula, its homeport. From here the CHAPMAN worked exclusively with the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center, supporting investigations into the marine resources of the Gulf of Mexico, western North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea.
The ship's first assignments were to explore the fishery potential of underutilized stocks of Gulf butterfish, squid and coastal herrings. CHAPMAN was successful in locating commercial concentrations of these species and went on to characterize and monitor these populations. This early work was closely connected with the newly emerging field of satellite imagery data acquisition and its application in fisheries science.
Among CHAPMAN’s significant contributions was in the field of scientific and fishing gear development. This involved testing not only new designs in fishing gear but also the sensors and equipment used to measure, monitor and even view fishing gear performance by towed, and later remotely operated, submersibles. CHAPMAN was the platform from which Southeast region fishery scientists developed the capability of measuring fish populations using fishery acoustic systems (FAS). In more recent years FAS was used on the CHAPMAN to locate grouper spawning aggregations and to characterize reef fish habitats during Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) annual surveys. Fixed video cameras deployed on sensitive reef habitat from this ship allowed scientists to collect critical information on the kinds and abundance of reef fishes in a non-destructive manner, a novel approach in fishery data collection. Her baseline studies of coral reefs off the Atlantic coast of Florida employing these techniques have led to establishment of the Experimental Oculina Research Reserve, one of the first such reserves of its kind.
The list of the accomplishments of this NOAA vessel and the contributions to fishery science and marine ecology that scientists aboard her have made would take many pages to recount. Work such as dredging for scallops and trawling for cod off the New England coast, to tagging striped bass in stormy winter seas off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to making physical oceanographic measurements and plankton collections within the Gulf Stream and the Loop Current, to collecting red tide organisms, to making observations of marine mammals have all been conducted from her plank-covered decks. The CHAPMAN took many scientists, students and teachers to sea during her 19 years, giving them the opportunity to make the observations needed to answer their questions and satisfy their curiosity. In so doing, the ship completed her mission to facilitate our exploration and understanding of the sea.
The127-foot long CHAPMAN, constructed by Bender Shipbuilding Co. in Mobile, Alabama, was commissioned into service on July 11, 1980, at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Center in Seattle, Washington. The vessel was named after Dr. Wilbert McLeod CHAPMAN, a prominent West Coast fisheries scientist.
Photos From Ceremony
The photos were taken by Denice Drass.
National Anthem sung by Andre Debose
Lowering of flag and commissioning
penant by Tim Lewis and Jerome Taylor.
Lowering of jack by Todd Wilson.
CHAPMAN sideboard presented to plank owner
Chief Stewart Willie Williams.
Plaque for Chief Bosun Jerome Taylor.
Plaque for Junior Engineer Brad Stopher.
Signed photo of ship presented to
Chief Steward Willie Williams.
Plaque for Dale Burgin,
NOAA Gulf Support Facility.
Benediction by Todd Wilson.
LCDR Todd Stiles, LCDR Mike Gallagher
and LT Ken Baltz with cake.
CHAPMAN Crew (left to right): Brad Stopher, Willie Williams, Charlie Karlsson, Jerome Taylor, Tim Lewis, LT Ken Baltz, LCDR Mike Gallagher, and LCDR Todd Stiles.