NOAAS Townsend Cromwell

On 25 December 1963, Townsend Cromwell arrived at Honolulu, Hawaii, which became her home port for her entire time in United States Government service. She was commissioned into service with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries at Honolulu on 25 January 1964 to support the Fish and Wildlife Service's Honolulu Laboratory. Her first 20 cruises involved an oceanographic experiment to characterize the influence of northeast trade winds north of the equator, which contributed to the development of a general circulation model for the waters of the North Pacific Ocean.[3]

In 1975, Townsend Cromwell came under the control of NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. Under NOAA control, she conducted fishery and living marine resource research in support of the National Marine Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratory in Honolulu, using bottom trawls, longlines, and fish traps to collect fish and crustacean specimens. She carried out fisheries assessment surveys, physical and chemical oceanography, marine mammal plans, and coral reef research, operating around the Hawaiian Islands and elsewhere in the waters of the central and western Pacific Ocean.[4][5]

NOAAS Townsend Cromwell (R 443) hove to at Pagan in the Mariana Islands in July 1982.

With the passage of the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act by the United States Congress in 1976 and the U.S. Government's establishment of a 200-nautical-mile fishery conservation zone, Townsend Cromwell began to support U.S. Government- and State of Hawaii-sponsored investigations of marine and land resources of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. After completing that work in 1982, she returned to assessments of commercial fishery resources such as spiny lobster, groundfish, and precious corals, and she conducted assessments of the deep shrimp and groundfish fisheries around Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. She also supported field camps on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to count Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles under a U.S. Government mandate for preservation of those species, and she took part in oceanographic cruises using satellites to improve the understanding of wind-generated eddies and large frontal systems in Pacific Ocean fisheries areas. In her later years, she participated in resource assessments for the Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.[3] For several years prior to her decommissioning, she took part in multi-agency U.S. Government efforts to remove hundreds of tons of discarded fishing gear and other marine debris from coral reef ecosystems.[5]

Townsend Cromwell's final cruise, a 30-day research expedition for the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program, ended at Honolulu on 7 October 2002.[5] After making an estimated 281 research cruises over nearly 39 years of service,[3] she was decommissioned on 10 October 2002.[4] She was replaced by NOAAS Oscar Elton Sette (R 335).[5]

After NOAA decommissioned Townsend Cromwell, the U.S. Government transferred her to the Government of American Samoa in accordance with Public Law 106–555, Section 204.[4] As MV Townsend Cromwell, she arrived at Pago Pago, American Samoa, in November 2002. The government of American Samoa hoped to use her to carry passengers and light cargo between Manu'a and Tutuila, but she was not certified to perform such services. In January 2003, the American Samoan government announced that it wanted to sell Townsend Cromwell or exchange her for a more suitable vessel for service to Manu'a.[6]

New Zealand businessman Michael Swann and a partner purchased Townsend Cromwell for use as a yacht. They were convicted in December 2008 of defrauding the Otago District Health Board in New Zealand, and the ship was put up for sale. Purchased by interests in Fiji, she was renamed MV Lau Trader and departed New Zealand in October 2009. With her home port at Suva, Fiji, and owned and managed by Lau Shipping, Lau Trader carries passengers and cargo between islands in eastern Fiji.[7][8]