GUIDE
Coast
and Geodetic Survey Ship GUIDE. In service 1923-1941.
Pacific service
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Steamer,
length 187.8, beam 35.5 feet, draft 9.8 feet. Built by New Jersey
Drydock and Transportation Company at Elizabethport, New Jersey in
1918 at a cost of $500,000. This vessel was acquired from the Navy
in 1923 and was the ex USS FLAMINGO, AM-32, a Navy minesweeper that
had served clearing mines of the North Sea barrage following the signing
of the Armistice. It was known as one of the “bird boats”
while attached to the Coast Survey. In company with the PIONEER it
conducted many early bathymetric surveys on the West Coast. The radio
acoustic ranging method of navigation was developed on this ship by
Captain Robert Luce under the direction of Captain Nicholas Heck.
In 1924 a sound signal was observed from 206 miles distant off the
Oregon coast being the first observed indication of the sound layer
that was later called the SOFAR channel. This vessel was commemorated
by the naming of Guide Seamount on the California coast.
