NOAAS Davidson (S 331)

NOAA Davidson (CSS 31), originally the second USC&GS Davidson, was a survey ship in service with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1967 to 1970 and with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 1989.

Davidson was launched by the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 May 1966. She entered service with the Coast and Geodetic Survey on 10 March 1967. When the Coast and Geodetic Survey merged with other agencies to form NOAA on 3 October 1970, Davidson became part of the NOAA fleet.

With her home port at Seattle, Washington, Davidson, along with her only sister ship McArthur, spent her career conducting hydrographic surveys along the United States West Coast, in Alaska waters, including Prince William Sound (1974), Tracy and Endicott Arms (Southeastern Alaska), Skagway Harbor, San Diego Bay (1975), and in the Pacific Ocean. She had a Bathymetric Swath Survey System (a stabilized deep-mapping sonar) and a Hydroplot data-recording system.

After being decommissioned in 1989 and stricken by 1996, the Davidson was operated for many years by a company in Seattle and home ported in Sitka, Alaska. She was used as a survey and research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, South America, Alaska, and various locations in the Pacific. She was eventually sold to interests in Nigeria and is currently operating there as a security vessel in the Nigerian offshore oilfields.