Launched 4 November 1972 at Chester, PA, by the Sun SB&DDCo., hull no. 661, as *Hughes Glomar Explorer* for Global Marine Development Corp,, Los Angeles. 577’ x 115.7 x 50.8; 27455 gt, 18511 nt; five 16-cylinder Nordberg Diesels, 13.5” x 16.5, 13200-bhp.

Later *Glomar Explorer* (1978), *Glomar Explorer* T-AG 193 [U. S. Navy] (1976), and *GSF Explorer* (2001). Converted 1997-98 to a test drilling vessel for offshore oil production while under a thirty-year lease from the U. S. Navy, 1996-2025: 27868 gt, 8305 nt.

The infamous vessel that, while supposedly mining manganese in the Pacific was actually recovering the remnants of the sunken Soviet submarine *K 129* off Hawaii in summer 1974, the purpose for which she was built. Shown at Long Beach, California, USA, in January 1980 while leased by the Navy to Global Marine for commercial use. A few months later Global turned her back to the Navy, who brought her to Suisun Bay for mothballing until leased again to Global Marine in 1996 and converted. Currently in use by Global Santa Fe Corp., Houston, in the Gulf of Mexico.