Climbing aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth, the first thing you notice is its complexity. There's a lot going on here, with urgent-looking machinery-tubes darting this way and that, enormous reels of cables, cranes, and even a creaky, uneven gangplank that threatens to topple visitors into the East River.
The Langseth, outfitted with myriad instruments and technology to map the sub-seabed, among other tasks, is a working ship, with the infrastructure and battle scars to match.
It's currently one of just five global class vessels -research vessels capable of long-duration missions in extreme environments, i.e., pretty much any part of Earth's oceans save areas covered by ice-and serves as the national facility for seismic imaging in the U.S.
"We're reconfiguring the ship for the next trip and doing maintenance: Repairing one of the clutches and a turbo charger, and fixing a variety of pipes," says our guide, Sean Higgins.
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