The RV ''Bilim-2'' is a Turkish

research vessel A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated ...

owned by the Middle East Technical University in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

and operated in deep waters by its

Institute of Marine Sciences The Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) is a Turkish facility that focuses on marine science-related education and research. IMS was founded in 1975 on the Erdemli Campus at METU ( Middle East Technical University) in Erdemli Erdemli is a town ...

based in Erdemli, Mersin, Turkey. She was built by

Istanbul Naval Shipyard Istanbul Naval Shipyard ( tr, İstanbul Donanma Tersanesi), also known as Pendik Naval Shipyard, is a naval shipyard of the Turkish Navy on the northeastern coast of the Sea of Marmara in Tuzla, Istanbul, Turkey. It is the largest shipbuilding f ...

in Pendik, Istanbul and launched in 1983 as RV ''Bilim'' ( Turkish for "Science"). In 2006, she was renamed ''Bilim-2''. She is the institute's main ship beside its two other smaller wooden-hull research boats, the 1979-built RV ''Erdemli'' and the 1981-built RV ''Lamas-1''. ''Bilim-2'' is equipped with a hydraulic

trawl Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...

winch A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in (wind up) or let out (wind out) or otherwise adjust the tension of a rope or wire rope (also called "cable" or "wire cable"). In its simplest form, it consists of a spool (or drum) attach ...

of 7.5 tonnes and 2 x wire capacity and a hydraulic net winch of 6-tonne capacity for fisheries and marine biological investigations. Marine geological studies are conducted using a shallow seismic system of type

EG&G EG&G, formally known as Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc., was a United States national defense contractor and provider of management and technical services. The company was involved in contracting services to the United States government ...

Uniboom,

side-scan sonar Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea ...

s, and various corers. A remotely operated underwater camera ( Mini Rover Benthos MK II) is also utilized in seafloor surveys.

Characteristics

Vessel

''Bilim-2'' is long, with a beam of and a max. draft of . Assessed at , and 190 NT, the ship is propelled by a diesel engine of

MWM GmbH Caterpillar Energy Solutions GmbH, is a mechanical engineering company based in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was known as MWM GmbH Motoren-Werke Mannheim (MWM) until November 2013. In 2009 the company was the third-largest producer ...

and variable-pitch propeller. She has a top speed of with in service. The vessel has a range of . The vessel has a

global positioning system The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

(GPS), a conventional radar with a range of for navigation and modern communication equipment. The ship has twelve crew, and can host up to fourteen scientists aboard. She can sail autonomously 45 days at sea. Her home port is

Erdemli Erdemli is a town and district of Mersin Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey, west of the city of Mersin. Geography Erdemli is located between the districts of Mezitli (to the east) and Silifke (to the west). In the north, Erdemli i ...

Mersin Province Mersin Province ( tr, ), formerly İçel Province ( tr, ), is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast between Antalya and Adana. The provincial capital and the biggest city in the province is Mersin, which is composed of f ...

, southern Turkey. However, efforts are underway to allow her mooring directly at the quay before the institute in

Instrumentation

Operated by using a hydrographic winch with a cable, a CTD profiling system of Sea-Bird Model 9 and a

rosette sampler ''For information about the conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instrument, see: CTD (instrument).'' A rosette sampler (also known as a CTD-rosette or carousel) is a device used for water sampling in deep water. Rosette samplers are used in the ...

with twelve bottles each five liter of General Oceanics are used for gathering physical and chemical data from the sea. An automatic Winkler

titration Titration (also known as titrimetry and volumetric analysis) is a common laboratory method of quantitative chemical analysis to determine the concentration of an identified analyte (a substance to be analyzed). A reagent, termed the ''titrant'' ...

system, an

AutoAnalyzer The AutoAnalyzer is an automated analyzer using a flow technique called continuous flow analysis (CFA), or more correctly segmented flow analysis (SFA) first made by the Technicon Corporation. The instrument was invented in 1957 by Leonard ...

, a

spectrofluorometer A spectrofluorometer is an instrument which takes advantage of fluorescent properties of some compounds in order to provide information regarding their concentration and chemical environment in a sample. A certain excitation wavelength is selected, ...

, an irradiance meter and various other instruments are available for chemical and nutrient analyses in the labs on board the vessel. Data collection and processing is carried out in the computer room.

Service

In 2010, ''Bilim-2'' was tasked by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock with a project for "Acoustic determination of

anchovy An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water. More than 140 species are placed in 1 ...

stock and establishing a continuous monitoring method" as part of the "National Fisheries Data Collection Program". For this study, she operated in

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

coast from

İğneada İğneada (Greek: Thynias) is a small town within the district of Demirköy, Kırklareli, Demirköy in Turkey's Kırklareli Province. It lies on the Black Sea coast and is approximately south of the Rezovo River, Mutludere river which forms the b ...

in the west to

Hopa Hopa ( Laz and , Hamshen ) is a city and district of Artvin Province in northeast Turkey. It is located on the eastern Turkish Black Sea coast about from the city of Artvin and 18 kilometres from the border with Georgia. Geography Hopa is on t ...

in the east during the fishing seasons beginning in 2011. Anchovy makes out about 60% of all fish caught in Turkey. In the 2011 fishing season, 200,000 tonnes of anchovy were caught while around 70,000 tonnes remained left in the sea. The fishing season for anchovy diminished in the last years to about one month in contrast to the same in the 1970s and 1980s when it lasted from November to May. Before the 2000s, the anchovy stock amounted to one-and-half million tonnes, according to experts.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilim-2 Research vessels of Turkey Ships built at Istanbul Naval Shipyard 1983 ships Middle East Technical University Erdemli District

Characteristics

Vessel

Instrumentation

Service

See also

References