Research vessel with capacity for coastal and oceanic research was built in Bergen, Norway, at the Mjellem & Karlsen shipyards. On September 1, 1978 it was offered by Norway to Portugal. The basic configuration of the ship includes hydrography, biology, chemistry, sampling and acoustic scans. This vessel is dedicated to bio-oceanography and fisheries campaigns, which study oceanography and plankton, sediments and benthic fauna, also performing acoustic screening, trailing the bottom and pelagic drag. It is a key element of the monitoring campaigns foreseen in the National Biological Sampling Plan. The ship also has the capacity to carry out surveys of marine geology and geophysics: it operates marine geophysics equipment, namely multichannel reflection seismic of very high resolution, multibeam and magnetic bathymetry.
