As part of an ongoing series, Bay Crossings offers a closer look at some of the businesses that make up Alameda’s working waterfront community—a thriving hotbed of distinctive, innovative and thoroughly hip young companies.
From left to right, research vessels Oceanus, Oscar Dyson, New Horizon and Melville have all had recent work performed on them at Alameda’s Bay Ship & Yacht Company. All photos by Chris Rochette
Bay Ship & Yacht frequently performs work for research institutes because it is a shipyard that can accommodate these unique projects. Recently, Bay Ship & Yacht has completed the maintenance and repair work on several prestigious research vessels for the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego, Oregon State University, NOAA and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Self-performing nearly all the work, Bay Ship & Yacht’s tasks on these vessels included: underwater body painting and repair work; machinist work throughout the vessel; structural repairs of all types on steel and aluminum vessels; as well as piping, lagging, hydraulic and joiner work.
Here’s a roll call of these recent projects:
R/V Melville (La Jolla, California), a Scripps Institute research vessel, was recently repaired. Melville has long been a significant part of the Scripps fleet, performing many types of important oceanographic research missions in oceans worldwide. She was recently docked in Bay Ship & Yacht’s new covered drydock, the HMB-1. Originally built for the Navy and named after Arctic pioneer Rear Admiral George Melville, the vessel is 297 feet long with a displacement of 2,900 tons. After work on Melville was complete, the vessel left Alameda and moored at the Treasure Island facility, then spent a brief time at the Exploratorium for scientific tours. Finally, Melville departed for scientific missions in the Pacific.
R/V New Horizon (La Jolla, California), another Scripps Institute of Oceanography research vessel, was recently repaired. New Horizon is a 1,000-ton vessel that has visited Bay Ship & Yacht on several occasions. The vessel is another very important vessel for Scripps, conducting scientific studies all across the Pacific and beyond.
R/V Oceanus (Newport, Oregon), an Oregon State University research vessel, was recently repaired. Oceanus belongs to OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and is responsible for a tremendous amount of very specialized research. Weighing 960 tons and 177 feet long, the vessel is a particularly good fit at Bay Ship & Yacht in Alameda using the Synchrolift, a state-of-the-art system that uses rails to move vessels up to 200 feet and 1,200 tons to one of 16 dry-berth working stations.
R/V Western Flyer (Monterey, California), a Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute vessel, was recently repaired on Bay Ship & Yacht’s drydock number 1. Western Flyer recently underwent some major upgrades with the addition of bow thrusters that will help facilitate its scientific studies. Weighing nearly 500 tons, Western Flyer is a very unique aluminum vessel of Swath design.
R/V Oscar Dyson (Kodiak, Alaska) is one of NOAA’s fleet of oceanographic, fisheries and climatic research vessels. At 208 feet and 2,500 tons, with an ice strengthened hull, she is a formidable vessel to handle the rigors of the Bering Sea.
