FORV SAGAR SAMPADA

Fishery Oceanographic Research Vessel (FORV) Sagar Sampada is a multidisciplinary research vessel owned by Ministry of Earth Sciences(MoES), GOI, New Delhi and operated by Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology (CMLRE), Kochi an attached office of MoES. The vessel was built in 1984 in Denmark under DANIDA program. The vessel has an OAL of 71.5m, breadth of 16 m and draft of 5.4 m. The vessel is used for scientific research primarily in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. The vessel being classified Ice Class B is capable of venturing up to 60 deg. South Latitude and was utilized to undertake studies in the Indian Ocean region of Antarctic waters.

The vessel is utilized for undertaking multi-disciplinary research in fishery, chemical, physical, biological and benthic studies with capability of trawling up to depth of 1000m. The facilities include state-of-the-art fishery acoustic equipment, deep sea sampling equipment, analytical laboratories, and meteorological facilities and fishing gears to study the overall bio-chemical, physical and living resources of the deep seas.

The vessel has a capacity to carry 22 scientists/technicians and 35 ship officers and crew. FORV Sagar Sampada has completed above 399 cruises over a span of last 37 years and still being fully utilized by the scientific community. The equipment onboard includes latest navigational, hydro acoustic, meteorological equipment complemented with fishing winches, nets and other fishing gears, deployable instruments like CTD, Grabs and Dredges for sampling, autosal and other instruments for chemical analysis and also equipment to study the physical processes of the seas around India.

Research Facilities

This vessel has installation of different types of winches and cables, cranes etc. The vessel is essentially a stern trawler. It is also suited for midwater and pelagic trawling. The fishing gear on board includes bottom trawls, cosmos trawl, High Speed Demersal Trawl (HSDT) - fish and crustacean version, High opening mid water trawls (RMT, Tucker Trawl etc) and Krill trawl. Additional facilities for sampling with Bongo Net, Multiple Plankton Net (MPN) with various mesh sizes are also available on the fishing deck.

Major Facilities / Laboratories for Scientific purpose available onboard are as follow:

• Wheel House – Sonar, Integrated Trawl Instrument & Big eye.
• Acoustic lab – Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), Integrated Fish Finding System, Scientific and Deep sea Echo-sounders.
• EDP Room – Computer, Printer, Scanner etc.
• Meteorology lab – Automatic weather station, Aspiration, Aneroid Barometer, Marine Barograph etc.
• Hydrographic lab – Continuous Underway Fish Egg Sampler, water samplers, Multiple Plankton Net, Milli-Q water purifier, Incubator, Muffle furnace etc.
• Oceanographic lab– CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth) profiler, Thermosalinograph etc.
• Chemistry lab- Autosal, Titrator, pH meter etc.
• Isotope lab – Isotope Fume cupboard, Refrigerator etc.
• Microbiology lab – Florescent Trinocular Microscope, Laminar Flow, BOD incubator, Hot air oven etc.
• Wet Fish lab – Ice machine, Mincing Machine, Peeling Machine, weighing machine etc.
• Miscellaneous equipments. – Grab, Spade Corer, Bongo. Dredge etc.
• Tunnel Freezer & Fish Hold for Keeping samples at ultra-low temperature
• Conference hall cum library.