US FWS Henry O'Malley was an American fisheries science research vessel in commission from 1949 to 1951 in the fleet of the United States Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service. She was the first U.S. fisheries science vessel to explore the central Pacific Ocean in search of commercially valuable populations of fish. Her career was cut short by a requirement for cost-prohibitive repairs. Prior to her time in the Fish and Wildlife Service, the vessel was in commission in the United States Navy as the patrol vessel USS YP-646 from 1945 to 1946. After her Fish and Wildlife Service career ended, she became the private fishing vessel MV Santa Rosa.
Construction The Colberg Boat Works built the vessel as the U.S. Navy patrol vessel YP-646 at Stockton, California, in 1945. As completed, she was listed as 117 feet (36 m) in length, with a displacement of 403 tons.
Service history
U.S. Navy The vessel was commissioned into U.S. Navy service as USS YP-646 on 11 June 1945. She was commissioned during the final summer of World War II. Hostilities soon ended on 15 August 1945, and Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945, bringing the war to an end. YP-646 served into the immediate aftermath of the conflict, operating in the Pacific Ocean and the waters of China until she was decommissioned in mid-1946.
Fish and Wildlife Service In August 1947, the United States Congress authorized a new "Pacific Ocean Fishery Program" calling for the "investigation, exploration, and development of the high seas fisheries of the Territories and Island Possessions [of the United States] and intervening areas in the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean." The United States Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (which in 1956 would become the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) was responsible for carrying out the program, which was to be overseen by a new Pacific Ocean Fishery Investigation (POFI) under the direction of Oscar Elton Sette. In addition to the construction of the Pacific Ocean Fisheries Laboratory at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in the Territory of Hawaii and the development of a Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) docking and warehouse site at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Congress funded the conversion or construction of three ocean-going vessels to support POFI's work. During 1949 and 1950, these three vessels joined the Fish and Wildlife Service fleet as US FWS Henry O'Malley, US FWS Hugh M. Smith, and US FWS John R. Manning.
Acquisition, conversion, and commissioning After YP-646 was reconditioned, the U.S. Navy transferred her to the FWS, which took delivery of her on 26 January 1948. After passing sea trials in which the FWS noted her main engine as running very well, she underwent conversion into a research vessel to support fisheries science investigations, designed to operate as an exploratory fishing vessel. Her conversion was completed on 27 September 1949. The FWS described her as a 128-foot (39 m) long motor vessel, with a beam of 29 feet (8.8 m) and a draft of 15 feet (4.6 m), powered by a 560-horsepower (420 kW) diesel engine, and equipped with two 125-kilowatt diesel-electric generators. She was commissioned as US FWS Henry O'Malley, named for Henry O'Malley (1876–1936), who led the United States Bureau of Fisheries as the Commissioner of Fisheries from 1922 to 1933. She was the first of the three fisheries research vessels the FWS assigned to POFI to enter service. Henry O'Malley departed San Diego, California, on 6 October 1949 bound for Honolulu, which she reached on 20 October. After her arrival, the manufacture of bait nets and other gear necessary to outfit her for bait fishing and deep trolling began. She moved to Pearl Harbor on 27 November 1949 to load bait.
First cruise Henry O'Malley got underway on 28 November 1949 for her first FWS cruise, an 11-day shakedown cruise in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands. Although hampered by bad weather, she tested her equipment — operating her pole-and-line gear and deploying her trolling gear to a depth of 600 feet (180 m) — and trained her crew for research operations before returning to Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1949.
Second cruise On 11 January 1950, Henry O'Malley departed Pearl Harbor in an attempt to begin her second FWS cruise and first scientific cruise, heading for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to explore the French Frigate Shoals for bait. However, excessive wear on the timing gear of her main engine forced her to abort the voyage and return. After repairs, she again set out from Pearl Harbor on 24 January 1950 to begin the cruise. She conducted exploratory fishing during her outbound voyage, arrived at the French Frigate Shoals on 27 January, and scouted Tern Island and Shark Island for bait the same day. High seas and winds of up to 45 knots (83 km/h; 52 mph) prevented her from conducting any further scientific operations until 5 February, when she looked for bait at Tern Island and East Island. All the bait she collected on both 27 January and 5 February was taken within 50 feet (15 m) of shore in 1 to 6 feet (0.3 to 1.8 m) of water. During her visit to French Frigate Shoals, she also experimented while at anchor with the use of yellow lights to attract fish at night. Bad weather returned on 6 February, so she abandoned further bait collection after only 11 days at French Frigate Shoals and only two days of bait collection and departed that day to begin the next phase of her cruise. It called for her to visit Johnston Island, then operate in the Line Islands before returning to Pearl Harbor on 21 March 1950. However, a main engine failure, again caused by excessive wear on the engine's timing gear, forced her to cut her cruise short, and instead she headed home, conducting exploratory fishing on her way back to Pearl Harbor, which she reached on 10 February. The 19 buckets of live bait she collected — iao (Hepsetia insularum) — did well in her live bait tanks. Some of the bait was studied at the University of Hawaii, while some was dumped into the waters of Pearl Harbor and found to be thriving there five days later.
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