PALINURUS

Schooner, length 84 feet, beam 24 feet, draft 6.8 feet. Built in 1873 for the Coast and Geodetic Survey. In service 1873-1889 on Atlantic coast. Among the first of Coast Survey vessels to be involved in oyster surveys in Chesapeake Bay. The origin of the name Palinurus could be derived from three definitions of the word palinurus: 1. So called from Palinurus, the pilot of Aeneas who took him to the underworld in Roman mythology. 2. (Naut.) An instrument for obtaining directly, without calculation, the true bearing of the sun, and thence the variation of the compass. 3. Genus Palinurus, rock lobster.