Transport: Needle Work

Alongside a dock hard by Britain's Royal Naval College in fogbound Dartmouth, the strangest ship in the world is being fitted out this week for a series of voyages that are to take her, within the next few years, to many an out-of-the-way corner of the seas. She is the Royal Research Ship Research, a trim 770-ton brigantine. Chief job of naval and civilian scientists, to be quartered in her midships, will be to chart magnetic variations, compare their readings with those taken by the Carnegie Institution's Carnegie before she blew up while taking on gasoline in Apia, Samoa, in 1929.

"True...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!