USNS ''Victorious'' (T-AGOS-19) is a ''Victorious''-class

ocean surveillance ship ''Stalwart''-class auxiliary general ocean surveillance ships ( T-AGOS) were a class of United States Naval Ship (USNS) auxiliary support Ocean Surveillance Ships commissioned between April 1984 and January 1990. Their original purpose was to c ...

which was acquired by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

in 1991 and assigned to the

Military Sealift Command Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all US m ...

(MSC) Special Missions Program.

Built in Morgan City, Louisiana

''Victorious'' was built by McDermott Shipyards,

Morgan City, Louisiana Morgan City is a small city in St. Mary and lower St. Martin parishes in the U.S. State of Louisiana. The population was 12,404 at the 2010 census. Known for being “right in the middle of everywhere”, Morgan City is located 68 miles (109&nb ...

. She was laid down on 12 April 1988 and launched on 3 May 1988 and was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 13 August 1991.

Special program

''Victorious'' was crewed by 19 civilian mariners under the control of the

(MSC) and staffed with five sponsors. She is of a

small waterplane area twin hull A small waterplane area twin hull, better known by the acronym SWATH, is a catamaran design that minimizes hull cross section area at the sea's surface. Minimizing the ship's volume near the surface area of the sea, where wave energy is locate ...

(SWATH) design, similar to a

catamaran A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...

, which provides a stable platform for towing the ship's SURTASS

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...

arrays.

Incidents with China

On March 4, 2009, ''Victorious'' was involved in one of a string of incidents between US research ships and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

ships. While operating in international waters, roughly 120 miles off the coast of mainland China in the

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour terms ...

, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate the entire length of ''Victorious'' several times. The following day, a Chinese Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys of ''Victorious'' at an altitude of about and a range of 500 yards. In May 2009, ''Victorious'' was again harassed by Chinese ships, this time while operating in the

. The Chinese vessels repeatedly approached ''Victorious'' at as close as 30 yards in heavy fog, at one point stopping in its path, forcing ''Victorious'' to stop to avoid a collision.

Notes

References

*
NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive - T-AGOS-19 Victorious

External links