From the time she was designed in 1928 and for a good part of her career that followed, Pelican was a vessel devoted to the study of fisheries and other marine ecosystems on the Atlantic seaboard, waters of the Gulf Coast, and the Pacific Northwest.
What began as a boat design from the maritime architect firm of H.C. Hansen and L.E. Coolidge in Seattle, became a reality on the opposite coast two years later with the building of the vessel by Boat Harbor Marine Railway in Newport News, Virginia. Christened Pelican, she was a fisheries research vessel placed into the service of the US Bureau of Fisheries with her launch in the summer of 1930.
A major concern in the Northeast at this time was the decline of fish stocks through overfishing. Regulation and enforcement were not sufficient alone to combat this with respect to the commercial fishing industry at this time. Research and study on the waters was viewed as a way to help maintain healthy supplies of cod and halibut in the waters of Maine, where Pelican was first assigned to monitor and collect data, both in coastal waters and offshore areas, until 1933.
The Pelican was refitted and recommissioned four years later in 1937, after being equipped with a hydrographic winch and 5,000-feet of cable that allowed deep water ocean surveys of sea beds, currents, and fishing grounds. The vessel transitioned to the Gulf of Mexico, tasked with the study of local shrimp populations as part of efforts to advance the shrimping industry (much of which was based out of New Orleans, the new homeport of the research ship).
At 78 feet long and a draft of just 10 feet, the wooden-hulled Pelican was equally equipped to handle rough seas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or foray into shallow bays and sounds to conduct surveys and collect data on various species, including a discovery about the migratory patterns of brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus) off the Louisiana coast in 1938.
On June 30, 1940, the Pelican was transferred to the newly renamed US Fish and Wildlife Service, and continued much of the same work to monitor and collect information about the marine ecology and commercial fishing stocks in North American waters. By 1958, she had returned to the West Coast, now in the service of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. Towards the end of her career as a marine science research vessel in 1970, she briefly served with the National Marine Fisheries Service (the agency today known as NOAA).
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In 1972, Pelican was sold to private interests, and began a new career as a charter pleasure boat, plying the coastal waters of Puget Sound and the inland passage north to Alaska. She changed owners again in 2018, continuing in a role as a maritime excursions vessel for passengers desiring to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the marine environment which she worked to protect for so many years of her life as a research vessel.
