In August of last year, we bade a sad farewell to the Floating Instrument Platform, known as FLIP, which after 61 years of service, had been retired and was scheduled to be sent to a scrapyard. Fortunately, our reporting was premature. It now appears that FLIP will flip again.
Maritime Executive reports that the iconic offshore platform has been saved from scrapping and is now in France where it is being modernized to start a new phase of its research missions. The vessel/platform was developed for the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research and operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
UK firm DEEP, a subsea design firm seeking to develop underwater human habitats, reports it acted quickly after learning that FLIP had been decommissioned and towed to Mexico last year to be dismantled. DEEP founder and CEO Kristen Tertoole assembled a team and sent them to Mexico with the instructions, “Save her. Don’t come back without her.”
The one-of-a-kind platform is 355 feet (108 meters) long and was commissioned in 1962 and decommissioned in 2023. It could be partially flooded to sink the stern and change the orientation of its buoyancy. Systems aboard the vessel were designed to rotate 90 degrees and operate in either configuration. By design, FLIP was minimally affected by ocean swells, and provided scientists with an extra-stable, extra-quiet platform for sensitive experiments.
FLIP has been transported by heavy lift vessel from Mexico to La Ciotat, France for a refit projected to last 12 to 18 months.
The plan calls for removing the 1960s superstructure from the vessel and replacing it with lighter-weight materials and modern technology. This will reduce weight giving the platform the capacity for more people and new scientific equipment. DEEP plans to install new sensors and add AUVs to increase the research capabilities.
DEEP highlights that FLIP was built in a time of a time of bold engineering and optimism. They look to harness this in a new generation of research. The plan is to relaunch the vessel in early 2026.
A video of FLIP flipping from 2009:
An iconic and well deserving vessel of preservation but how do you convince Joe Public?
Alongside it is unimpressive, in deep water it is inaccessible.
A real and present conundrum for a vessel that has contributed so much to our understanding of the oceans.
Fortunately Peter they seem to be putting her back into service rather than making her a museum ship.