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With broad support from the San Diego community, the lease for the berth and associated port facility for the new NOAA Ship Reuben Lasker was unanimously approved on Tuesday, 13 November 2012, by the San Diego Port Commissioners. The Lasker is due to arrive on the West Coast in the late summer of 2013. Shakedown cruises will be conducted in the fall of 2013 with surveys to commence in 2014. The Lasker will be docked at the Crosby Pier in San Diego with secure access via the 10th Avenue Terminal Gate. The lease includes a dedicated berth, warehouse, port captain's office, parking and outdoor lay-down space.
The Lasker will primarily support the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) and replaces NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan, which logged over 1.5 million miles of research surveys for the SWFSC. The Lasker is the fifth in a series of the most technologically advanced fisheries vessels in the world. The new Lasker will be equipped with a full suite of modern instrumentation for fisheries and oceanographic research, including advanced navigation systems, multi-frequency acoustic sensors, direct sampling gear and extensive laboratories. These technologies will dramatically improve the SWFSC’s ability to collect the data required for science-based conservation and management of fish, marine mammals and turtles off the west coast of North America and in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
The new vessel is named after the late Dr. Reuben Lasker, who served as the Director of SWFSC’s Coastal Fisheries Division and as adjunct professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, U.C. San Diego. Funding for the construction of the ship was provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Read the Port of San Diego press release here.![The previous link is a link to non-Federal government website. Click to review NOAA Fisheries disclaimer. The previous link is a link to non-Federal government website. Click to review NOAA Fisheries disclaimer.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20130224175851im_/http://swfsc.noaa.gov/uploadedImages/Events/News/DO/clip_image001.png?n=915)
Read more about NOAA Ship Reuben Lasker here and here.