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Former American oceanographic research vessel

NOAAS Oceanographer (R 101), originally USC&GS Oceanographer (OSS O1), was an American Oceanographer class oceanographic research vessel in service in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1966 to 1970 and in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 1996. She served as flagship of both the Coast and Geodetic Survey and NOAA fleets.

Designed by the U. S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), Oceanographer was laid down on 22 July 1963 by Gibbs Shipyards Constructed under MARADs supervision, she was completed on 20 April 1966, In 1968, she supported Project Sea Use, a multi party expedition to Cobb Seamount in the North Pacific Ocean which developed much of the initial scientific understanding of the seamount. In 1969 she completed the circumnavigation of the globe she began in March 1967 when she returned to the U. S. East Coast. Other highlights of Oceanographers career included participation in the first large scale, coordinated international sea air interaction survey, known as the BOMEX Study, in 1969, and environmental base line studies on deep ocean mining (DOMES). In 1980, Oceanographer became the first U. S. Government vessel allowed into a port of the People's Republic of China. Oceanographer was placed in reserve in July 1981. She underwent a major refit in which she received an Alden weatherfax, a Sperry Mark 37 gyro, a Raytheon X band Pathfinder radar, Inmarsat, an MX1102 Global Positioning System, a new salinometer, a Shipboard Environmental Acquisition System with expendable bathythermograph gear, a new meteorological station, and a Doppler current profiling system, and returned to service with this new equipment on 8 April 1986. Placed in reserve in 1989, she later returned to service again.

Oceanographer and NOAA Ships Discoverer (R 102) and Malcolm Baldridge (R 103), ex Researcher, were replaced by NOAAS Ronald H. Brown (R 104) under the NOAA Fleet Modernization Program in the 1990s. After being decommissioned in 1996, Oceanographer was sold to the Kirkland Yacht Club Marina of Kirkland, Washington, to act as a breakwater and was renamed M/V Protector. Protector was tied up at the marina from 1997 to 2005. In August 2005, Protector was renamed M/V Sahara and towed to a Seattle, Washington, shipyard to be refitted as a luxury cruise ship. In 2010, Lia Hawkins died while working on the conversion. Courts awarded $3.45 million to Hawkins's estate. The ship's owner, G Shipping Ltd., a Malta based company controlled by Italian race car driver and hotelier Emanuele Garosci appears to have had the ship claimed by the courts in lieu of payment. As of 2016, the conversion project had been canceled and the ship was for sale for US$1,200,000. The ship was broken up in Mexico in 2019.