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Building on Past Experience

Before Henry Bryant Bigelow became WHOI’s founding director in 1930, the pioneering oceanographer and marine biologist conducted research aboard the U.S. Fish Commission vessel Grampus. Named for a large dolphin, Grampus was a wooden, two-masted sailboat built to collect live fish and to serve as a model of an improved fishing schooner. While using the vessel for surveys in the Gulf of Maine, Bigelow found that it was not sufficiently stable for oceanographic work, and its small hoisting engine could not handle the necessary heavy equipment. He later applied his experiences and challenges with Grampus to the design of WHOI’s first research vessel, Atlantis. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)