Boat Used in Discovery of Titanic Wreck Bids Farewell to Cape Cod

CCB MEDIA PHOTO: Shrouded in fog, the former WHOI research vessel Knorr departs docks in Woods Hole for the final time Tuesday

WOODS HOLE – The ship that oceanographer Robert Ballard used to discover the wreck of the Titanic departed for the final time yesterday from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution dock.

The Knorr has been retired from service at WHOI and is being transferred to the Mexican Navy

The vessel departed Tuesday under a shroud of fog.

Ballard famously used the ship to pinpoint the Titanic’s location in 1985, and it logged more than 1 million miles’ worth of explorations over the past four decades.

It was officially decommissioned in 2014.

Woods Hole scientists say the Knorr weathered 70-foot waves, hurricanes and arctic ice. The organization said in a statement this week that the ship’s final exit will be “bittersweet.”

The Knorr, launched in 1968, was named in honor of Ernest R. Knorr, a distinguished U.S. Navy hydrographic engineer and cartographer.

The vessel is being renamed the ARM Rio Tecolutia.