page_title: USS Albatross (1882)
section_title: Changed to schooner
hierarchical_section_title: USS Albatross (1882) / Changed to schooner
caption_attribution_description: English: On verso of image: U.S. Bureau of Fisheries S.S. Albatross In Folder 132 Subjects (LCSH): Albatross (Schooner); Schooners--Alaska
context_page_description: The second USS Albatross, often seen as USFC Albatross in scientific literature citations, was an iron-hulled, twin-screw steamer in the United States Navy and reputedly the first research vessel ever built especially for marine research.
  Albatross was laid down at Wilmington, Delaware, by Pusey and Jones in March 1882; launched on 19 August 1882, and commissioned on 11 November 1882, with Lt. Zera L. Tanner in command. Tanner, who had superintended the ship's design and construction, would command Albatross, a Navy-manned vessel assigned to the United States Fish Commission, a civilian government agency, for nearly 12 years.
context_section_description: Found unseaworthy upon her return to San Francisco, Albatross' sphere of operations was limited to the San Francisco Bay, and during 1912, 1913 and 1914, the ship carried out a biological survey of that body of water. Late in this period, during the fiscal year 1913, Albatross underwent a major refit at Mare Island that altered her rigging from brigantine to schooner and enlarged her deckhouse, as the pilot house was extended to provide two offices and a new stateroom for the executive officer. In addition, a radio "shack" was built forward of the mainmast.
  Albatross subsequently departed San Francisco on 12 April 1914 and set course for the coasts of Washington and Oregon, but interrupted her survey of the fishing grounds off the coasts of Washington and Oregon, to take the Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries to the Pribilofs, on an inspection trip of the fisheries of central and western Alaska that lasted from 12 June to 22 August. Returning to San Francisco on 15 September 1914, she resumed her work off the Oregon and Washington coasts the following summer, clearing her home port on 6 July 1915. Over the ensuing months, she resurveyed the grounds she had studied during her cruises in 1888 and 1889. From the spring of 1916 into the autumn of that year, Albatross operated in the waters off southern and Lower California, to learn of the "distribution and migration of tuna."
caption: Schooner Albatross at anchor in Alaska
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