NOAAS Gordon Gunter (R 336)

NOAAS Gordon Gunter (R 336) is a research vessel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Commissioned on 28 August 1998, Gordon Gunter is one of the modern vessels added to the NOAA fishery research fleet. A multi-use vessel, that operates in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, Gordon Gunter, primarily serves the National Marine Fisheries Service Mississippi laboratory located at the ship's home port of Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Construction, acquisition, and commissioning
Gordon Gunter was laid down as the United States Navy Military Sealift Command Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship USNS Relentless on 22 April 1988 by Halter Marine, Inc. at Moss Point, Mississippi, and launched on 12 May 1989. Relentless was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 12 January 1990. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 20 May 1993 having been transferred to NOAA on 17 March 1993.

The Relentless was converted into an oceanographic research vessel and commissioned into NOAA service as NOAAS Gordon Gunter on 28 August 1998, homeported at Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship is named in honor of Dr. Gordon Gunter, a marine biologist and pioneer in marine research and education in the Gulf of Mexico. Gunter served as director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, the predecessor of the National Marine Fisheries Mississippi laboratory, from 1955 to 1971. Gunter continued working with the laboratory as director emeritus and a professor of zoology until his retirement in 1979. Gunter's body of work is extensive and cited in scientific books in five different languages.

Capabilities
Gordon Gunter is fitted with modern navigation electronics and oceanographic winches, sensors, and sampling equipment. The ship has 1,229.5 square feet of mission-dedicated laboratory spaces consisting of wet, dry, chemistry, and computer labs. The ship also has a marine mammal observation and survey station located on top of the Pilothouse. The ship has the ability to collect fisheries research data by stern trawling, longlining, deployment of various plankton nets and other types of gear. An acoustically quieted research ship, Gordon Gunter is able to serve as a useful platform from which to study and observe marine mammals.

The vessel has also demonstrated mission flexibility by its ability to be quickly reconfigured. An example was when the after working deck was reconfigured to deploy a weather buoy about 160 mi off the Louisiana coast. This mission helped fill a critical data gap in weather information heavily relied upon by commercial fishermen, the petroleum industry, and recreational boaters.