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High and Dry

On September 14, 1944, WHOI’s original  research vessel Atlantis was moved to the dock of the National Marine Fisheries Service because of an impending hurricane; Captain Lambert Knight and four other crew men stayed aboard. When the fastening lines parted during the storm, Knight managed to steer the ship toward a place he knew to be mud-bottomed. After the storm, Atlantis rested in six to seven feet of water on Ram Island flats—in the upper reaches of Woods Hole’s Great Harbor, near the causeway to Penzance Point—for three weeks. There was no major damage to the ship, though it did cost the Institution $17,000 to have salvage operators raise and move the ship. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)