Ships

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The Scripps Fleet of four oceanographic research vessels and the research platform FLIP make up one of the largest academic fleets in the world. Scripps' ships include the flagship global-class research vessel (R/V) Roger Revelle, named after the former Scripps director and founder of UC San Diego; the R/V Melville, a global-class ship named after George Wallace Melville, a pioneer arctic explorer, engineer, and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy; the R/V New Horizon, an intermediate-class vessel that operates primarily in the eastern Pacific Ocean; and the R/V Robert Gordon Sproul, a regional-class vessel that conducts short missions off the U.S. West Coast..

Scripps' ships feature state-of-the-art research instruments to study marine life, the oceans, seafloor, and atmosphere. Cruises vary from local trips to expeditions as long as two-and-a-half years. Available to scientists around the world, Scripps's ships have steamed more than 6 million nautical miles in support of science and the academic community.

Ship Operations and Marine Technical Support is headed by Scripps Associate Director Bruce Appelgate and consists of three major parts:

Scripps's four ships, all members of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet, are homeported at Scripps' Nimitz Marine Facility (Marfac) on Point Loma. Marfac includes a six-acre complex with piers, warehouses, laboratories, and offices that support the fleet. Captain Zoltan Kelety is in charge of the operations of the facility and all Scripps ships. The research platform FLIP is homeported at Marfac, though managed operationally by Scripps' Marine Physical Laboratory.

Housed primarily in Isaacs Hall on the main Scripps campus (with one STS group generally located at Marfac), STS provides seagoing scientific equipment and associated technical services across a wide spectrum of oceanographic tasks and user requirements on Scripps ships and other ships worldwide. The capabilities of STS range from scientific logistics, deck operations, and safety oversight to marine seismic profiling, global satellite communications at sea (HiSeasNet), conductivity, temperature, and depth operations, biological sampling, and shipboard computer systems and networks. STS is managed by Woody Sutherland.

The Ship Scheduling & Foreign Clearance office is based on the La Jolla campus and manages the scheduling of Scripps ships. This work is conducted by Elizabeth Brenner and Rose Dufour, in consultation with ship users, scientists, and schedulers from other U.S. institutions working under the aegis of UNOLS. Foreign clearances are required whenever Scripps research vessels collect data within the Exclusive Economic Zones of other countries, and requires coordination between Scripps, the U.S. State Department, and shipboard scientists.