''GSF Explorer'', formerly USNS ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' (T-AG-193), was a deep-sea
drillship
A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...
platform built for
Project Azorian
Project Azorian (also called "Jennifer" by the press after its Top Secret Security Compartment) was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine ''K-129'' from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974, using th ...
, the secret 1974 effort by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
's
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operation, covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within S ...
to recover the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
''K-129''.
Construction
The ship was built as ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' in 1971 and 1972 by
Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. for more than (about $ billion in ) at the direction of
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
for use by his company,
Global Marine
Global Marine Group is a British-headquartered specialist provider of installation, maintenance and repairs of submarine communications cable for the telecommunications, oil & gas and deep sea research industries. To this end, they operate their ...
Development Inc. It began operation on 20 June 1974.
Hughes told the media that the ship's purpose was to extract
manganese nodule
Polymetallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are mineral concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. As nodules can be found in vast quantities, and contain valuable metals, de ...
s from the
ocean floor
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'.
The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...
. This
marine geology
Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone. Marine geolog ...
cover story became surprisingly influential, causing many others to examine the idea.
Project Azorian
The Soviet diesel-electric submarine ''K-129'' sank in the Pacific Ocean NW of Hawaii, on 8 March 1968. The
USS ''Halibut'' identified the wreck site and the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
crafted an elaborate and highly secret plan to recover the submarine for intelligence purposes. As ''K-129'' had sunk in very deep water, at a depth of 16,500 feet (), a large ship was required for the recovery operation. Such a vessel would be detected easily by Soviet vessels, which might then interfere with the operation, so an elaborate cover story was developed. The
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
contacted Hughes, who agreed to help.
In 1974, the ship recovered a portion of ''K-129'', but as the section was being lifted to the surface, a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off. This lost section is said to have held many of the most-sought items, including the code book and nuclear missiles. The recovered section held two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners, who were given a formal, filmed
burial at sea
Burial at sea is the disposal of human remains in the ocean, normally from a ship or boat. It is regularly performed by navies, and is done by private citizens in many countries.
Burial-at-sea services are conducted at many different location ...
.
The operation became public in February 1975 when the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' published a story about "Project Jennifer". Other news organizations, including ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
,'' added details. The CIA declined to either confirm or deny the reports, a tactic that became known as the
Glomar response
In United States law, the term Glomar response, also known as Glomarization or Glomar denial, refers to a response to a request for information that will "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) the existence of the information sought. For example, in res ...
and subsequently used to confront all manner of journalistic and public inquiry, including
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request:
* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
requests. The actual name, Project Azorian, became public only in 2010.
The publication ''Red Star Rogue'' (2005) by Kenneth Sewell claims "Project Jennifer" recovered virtually all of ''K-129'' from the ocean floor.
[Podvig 2001, p. 243.] Sewell states, "
spite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of ''K-129'' and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the ''Glomar Explorer''".
A subsequent movie and book by Michael White and Norman Polmar (''Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129'') revealed testimony from on-site crewmen as well as B&W video of the actual recovery operation. These sources indicate that only the forward of the submarine were recovered.
After Project Azorian
Mothballing
![Glomar Explorer Suisun Bay CA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Glomar_Explorer_Suisun_Bay_CA.jpg)
While the ship had an enormous lifting capacity, there was little interest in operating the vessel because of her great cost. From March to June 1976, the
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...
(GSA) published advertisements inviting businesses to submit proposals for leasing the ship. By the end of four months, GSA had received a total of seven bids, including a US$2 offer submitted by Braden Ryan, a
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
, Nebraska college student,
and a US$1.98 million offer ($ million in ) from a man who said he planned to seek a government contract to salvage the nuclear reactors of two United States submarines. The Lockheed Missile and Space Company submitted a US$3 million ($ million in ), two-year lease proposal contingent upon the company's ability to secure financing. GSA had already extended the bid deadline twice to allow Lockheed to find financial backers for its project without success and the agency concluded there was no reason to believe this would change during the near future.
Although the scientific community rallied to the defense of ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'', urging the president to maintain the ship as a national asset, no agency or department of the government wanted to assume the maintenance and operating cost. Subsequently, during September 1976, the GSA transferred ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' to the Navy for
storage, and during January 1977, after it was prepared for dry docking at a cost of more than two million dollars, the ship became part of the Navy's
Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet
The Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet is located on the northwest side of Suisun Bay (the northern portion of the greater San Francisco Bay estuary) in Benicia, California. The fleet is within a regulated navigation area that is about long and wide. It ...
.
[Pike, John]
"Project Jennifer: Hughes Glomar Explorer."
''Intelligence Resource Program'' via ''fas.org,'' 16 February 2010. Retrieved: 25 December 2010.
Lease, sale and disposal
In September 1978, Ocean Minerals Company consortium of
Mountain View, California, announced it had leased ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' and that in November would begin testing a prototype deep-sea mining system in the Pacific Ocean. The consortium included subsidiaries of the
Standard Oil
Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...
Company of Indiana,
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
, and
Boskalis Westminster Group NV of the Netherlands. The consortium's prime contractor was the
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) was a unit of the Lockheed Corporation "Missiles, Space, and Electronics Systems Group." LMSC was started by Willis Hawkins who served as its president. After Lockheed merged with Martin-Marietta the u ...
.
In late 1996, the ship was towed from the mothball fleet in Suisun Bay to San Francisco Bay, where much of the existing rig structure around the moon pool, including the massive gimbal was removed.
Following this, she was towed North to Portland, Oregon, for drydocking, closing up much of the submarine-sized moonpool, and engine repairs, among other things.
In June 1997, the ship departed Portland under its own power and sailed around South America and up to Atlantic Marine's shipyard in
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...
, for conversion to a
dynamically-positioned deep sea drilling ship, capable of drilling in waters of and, with some modification, up to , which was deeper than any other existing rig at the time. The conversion cost more than $180 million ($ million in ) and was completed during the first quarter of 1998.
The conversion of the vessel from 1996–1998 was the start of a 30-year lease from the U.S. Navy to Global Marine Drilling at a cost of US$1 million per year ($ million per year in ). Global Marine merged with Santa Fe International Corporation during 2001 to become
GlobalSantaFe Corporation, which merged with
Transocean
Transocean Ltd. is an American company. It is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor based on revenue and is based in Vernier, Switzerland. The company has offices in 20 countries, including Canada, the United States, Norway, United ...
in November 2007 and operated the vessel as ''GSF Explorer''.
In 2010, Transocean bought the vessel for a ($ million in ) in cash.
The vessel was reflagged from
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
to
Port Vila, Vanuatu
Port Vila (french: Port-Vila), or simply Vila (; french: Vila; bi, Vila ), is the capital and largest city of Vanuatu. It is located on the island of Efate.
Its population in the last census (2009) was 44,040, an increase of 35% on the pr ...
, in the third quarter of 2013.
During her 18-year drilling career, she worked in the Gulf Of Mexico, Nigeria, the Black Sea, Angola, Indonesia and India, with various shipyards and port visits along the way, with numerous oil company clients. Crew members fondly referred to her as "The Mothership".
Transocean announced in April 2015 that the ship would be scrapped.
"Transocean’s new fleet status, scraps GSF Explorer"
''Offshore Engineer'' Retrieved: 17 April 2015. The ship arrived at the ship breakers at Zhoushan
Zhoushan , formerly romanized as Chusan, is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of H ...
, China, on June 5, 2015.[''Journal of the World Ship Society Volume 69, No 11, November 2015''](_blank)
Retrieved 17 December 2015.
See also
* Hughes Mining Barge
The ''Hughes Mining Barge'', or ''HMB-1'', is a submersible barge about 99 m (324 ft) long, 32 m (106 ft) wide, and more than 27 m (90 ft) tall. The ''HMB-1'' was originally developed as part of Project Azorian (mor ...
* Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operation, covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within S ...
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
* Burleson, Clyde W. ''The Jennifer Project.'' College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. .
* DeLuca, Marshall and William Furlow, eds
"Steeped in history, Glomar Explorer finally returns to industry, Converted vessel set to drill in record water depth."
''Offshore'' magazine, Volume 58, Issue 3, March 1998.
* Dunham, Roger C. ''Spy Sub: Top Secret Mission To The Bottom Of The Pacific.'' New York: Penguin Books, 1996. .
* Podvig, Pavel, ed. ''Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces.'' Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2001. . (originally published by Center for Arms Control Studies'', Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology)
* Polmar, Norman & Michael White. ''PROJECT AZORIAN-The CIA and the Raising of the K-129''. Naval Institute Press. 2010. .
* Sewell, Kenneth. ''Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. .
*
* Sontag, Sherry, Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew. ''Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage.'' New York: Harper, 1998. .
* Varner, Roy and Wayne Collier. ''A Matter of Risk: The Incredible Inside Story of the CIA's Hughes Glomar Explorer Mission to Raise a Russian Submarine.'' New York: Random House, 1978. .
External links
*
AZORIAN The Raising of the K-129 / 2009 - 2 Part TV Documentary / Michael White Films Vienna
Transocean, Inc.
New life as a Global Drilling
* ttp://w3.the-kgb.com/dante/military/mission.html Project overview
Overview of Project Jennifer
Virtual tour inside HMB-1 and Sea Shadow, 2011, includes HMB-1 operating manual.
''Glomar Explorer'' Technical Description
''The secret on the ocean floor''
BBC (2018).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glomar Explorer
K-129 submarine sinking accident
Howard Hughes
1972 ships
Cold War auxiliary ships of the United States
Miscellaneous auxiliaries of the United States Navy
Drillships
Ships built by the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company
Transocean