The keel laying ceremony of the NOAA Ship Ferdinand R. Hassler was held June 15, 2007 at the VT Halter Marine shipyard in Moss Point, Mississippi. The Hassler is the first vessel NOAA has constructed in 40 years designed specifically for hydrography. The primary mission of Hassler will be to map the full seafloor in coastal areas for the nation's nautical charts. Its unique design as a SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) vessel will allow it to operate in much rougher seas than a conventional displacement hull vessel of similar length.  The Hassler is expected to be completed in late 2009 or early 2010, and will be homeported in Newcastle, New Hampshire. It will operate in waterways along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Caribbean Sea and Great Lakes, conducting hydrographic surveys of the seafloor using side scan and multibeam sonar technologies.

The Hassler was named by a team of the four 10th-grade students and their biology teacher from Naugatuck High School in Naugatuck, CT as part of the “Name NOAA’s New Ship” contest. Ferdinand R. Hassler was the first superintendent of the Coast Survey founded in 1807 and was a key player in NOAA’s earliest history. Since September 2003, NOAA has been using its fleet modernization program to promote science education and ocean literacy by including students and teachers in the ship naming process. Thousands of students have participated in the contests sponsored by the NOAA Office of Education and learned more about NOAA’s important scientific research. Ferdinand R. Hassler is the fourth NOAA vessel named through this contest.