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USF Foots Bill For Marine Institute Vessel

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By ADAM EMERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 15, 2008

TAMPA - For years, Florida's marine scientists have scoured the gulf and ocean waters in an aging vessel that once served pot smugglers running drugs from Colombia to Florida.

Soon, that ship will retire.

After several failed attempts, the St. Petersburg-based Florida Institute of Oceanography will get a newer vessel capable of doing more marine research than its current ship, which is about four decades old.

Underscore "newer." The RV Weatherbird II, paid for by the University of South Florida, is still more than 20 years old.

In lean times, however, it's the best the institute can get. USF persuaded its foundation to loan it $2.1 million to buy the boat, which can handle more equipment for use in a greater array of studies, from a St. Petersburg environmental research company.

The institute is a consortium of marine science groups - of which USF is a member - that studies everything from red tide blooms to water pollution to the life expectancy of sharks. USF also owns the institute's previous ship, the Suncoaster.

The Suncoaster wasn't built for marine science or education: The institute acquired it for $48,000 in 1980 when it was docked with other confiscated boats in the Miami River; the Coast Guard had seized it from drug runners, who used it to smuggle 40 tons of marijuana in the Caribbean.

State leaders resisted the institute's call to design and build a new ship, which would have cost $15 million. Last year, the university system's Board of Governors denied the institute's request for money, citing its own souring budget.

For USF's College of Marine Science to thrive, however, it needed access to a better oceangoing vessel to conduct the research the state relies upon, said William Hogarth, interim dean of USF's College of Marine Science. Hogarth asked USF Provost Ralph Wilcox for help, and Wilcox turned to the foundation.

"Everybody would love to have a new vessel, but we realize the economic times we live in," Hogarth said.

The institute could have the ship, now docked in Jacksonville and awaiting inspection, in the next two months. The university is asking the Board of Governors to request the $2.1 million from the Legislature so that it can repay the USF Foundation.

If the Legislature doesn't come through with the money, Wilcox says he will repay the loan somehow, even from his own university budget.

"This is a much-needed vessel," Wilcox said.

The RV Weatherbird II is 115 feet long, compared with the smaller Suncoaster, which measured 102 feet.

It can hold more people and more marine equipment, and it has the laboratory space for state-of-the-art technology that the Suncoaster lacks. Scientists also plan to fit the ship with a remote TV that can broadcast real-time video of marine life to school classrooms, said John Ogden, the institute's director.

The Weatherbird II was built for use by the oil industry, but has been inspected by a marine architect, Ogden said.

"The Suncoaster was built for another purpose entirely," Ogden said. The Weatherbird II, meanwhile, "will carry us forward for the next decade to decade-and-a-half," he said.

Ogden couldn't say what USF plans to do with the Suncoaster, except to say that "we will no longer operate her in service of marine science and education."

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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