The ship can stand up at a 90 degree angle in the middle of the sea

The US Navy's FLIP or Floating Instrument Platform is an interesting and unique oceanographic instrument. The ship was built in 1962 by the Marine Physics Laboratory of the Scrippps Institute of Oceanography, University of California. 

The ship is 108m long, has a long hollow body at the back, and small rooms in the front.

Instead of a ship, FLIP is more like a special and super large buoy. The ship floats in a horizontal direction when the head is filled with air. But when the more than 90m long "handle" of FLIP is pumped with about 700 tons of seawater, it will sink down while the head slowly rises and floats out of the water vertically.

When floating, the water pumped in is taken from the deep sea so FLIP can stand firmly, not swaying or being affected by waves on the sea surface. Researchers can then measure acoustics, study meteorology, physical oceanography and air-sea interactions.

When the research mission is completed, compressed air is pumped into the water tanks to force out the seawater and the ship returns to a horizontal position so it can move like a normal boat to the new research location.

During the capsizing process, everyone had to stand outside on deck and this process took 28 minutes. When FLIP rotates, the deck becomes the bulkhead and vice versa, the bulkhead becomes the deck. To accommodate the two states of the ship, most rooms have two doors.

Marvin Fry

Update 14 June 2024