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serious problems in voluntary physician recruitment.
The ship contract
specifically limits the scientific party to twelve people, even though
U.S. Oceanography and PASO were informed prior to the initial contract
signing that we would need at least eighteen habitable bunks for the
scientific party.
The inadequacies of this ship have been a matter of
recordforoverayear, yet the Department of Energy ship procurement
. I
group have ignored our repeated requests for a meeting to resolve this
very important matter.
This ship is essentially a shallow draft, round bottom vessel,
It
is a converted Navy garbage scow, designed for harbor and off-shore work.
The roll, pitch and yaw characteristics of this vessel in the normal open
ocean Marshall Island winter oceanographic conditions are such that the
vessel becomes almost uninhabitable.
The most recent and dramatic demonstra-
tion of the unsuitability of this vessel occurred during the recent whole-body
counting trip to Ujelang.
Tony Greenhouse, was the scientific trip leader,
Roger Ray was the Department of Energy leader.
Mr. Greenhouse's description
of the trip from Ujelang to Eniwetok is a graphic description of characteristics
of this vessel.
He states that although they were not in a storm, the trip
“had to be the roughest voyage in my recollection.' '
Two very serious problems
developed during what should have been about 120 miles of routine open-ocean
steaming.
Tony states that the pitching of the vessel was so violent that
the scientific party voluntarily restricted themselves to their bunks in the
scientific berthing area.
He states that they had to “hold on to the bunk
rails to prevent being thrown from their bunks."
"Everyone was seasick,"
On one occasion he had to leave his bunk but found that walking about 40' to
the head was precarious.
Because of this they just "stayed put."
During
this period, Tony states that the ship was making about_2 knots for a
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