The RV

Ship prefix

A ship prefix is a combination of letters, usually abbreviations, used in front of the name of a civilian or naval ship.Prefixes for civilian vessels may either identify the type of propulsion, such as "SS" for steamship, or purpose, such as "RV" for research vessel. Civilian prefixes are often...

 K. Piri Reis (full name Koca Piri Reis) is a Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 multi purpose research vessel

Research vessel

A research vessel is a ship designed and equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel...

 owned by Dokuz Eylül University

Dokuz Eylül University

Dokuz Eylül University is one of the preeminent universities in Turkey. It is located in İzmir, Turkey. It was founded in 1982 and is organized in 10 schools...

 in İzmir

Izmir

Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

 and operated by its Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology. Built in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

 and launched in 1978, she was named in honor of the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 naval captain and renowned cartographer Piri Reis

Piri Reis

Piri Reis was an Turkish Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470 and died in 1554 or 1555....

.

Characteristics

K. Piri Reis was built in June 1978 at the Schiffswerft Diedrich Oldersum in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. She is 36 metre long, with a beam of 8.05 metre and a draught of 3.4 metre. Assessed at and 87 NRT

Net register tonnage

Net register tonnage is a ship's cargo volume capacity expressed in "register tons", one of which equals to a volume of . It is calculated by reducing non-revenue-earning spaces i.e. spaces not available for carrying cargo, for example engine rooms, fuel tanks and crew quarters, from the ship's...

, the ship is propelled by a 610 hp
MWM Suddeutsche Brimsen AG MWM TD 602 V12 diesel engine

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

. She has a speed of 9 knots (17.6 km/h) in service.

The ship's crew consists of 10 seamen, and she carries 11 scientists aboard. K. Piri Reis has an autonomous endurance of 20 days.

Scientific work

The ship is equipped with modern instruments and a laboratory to carry out research work in various fields like oceanography

Oceanography

Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...

, marine biology

Marine biology

Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...

, undersea geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, geophysics

Geophysics

Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...

 for oil and gas exploration and earthquake engineering

Earthquake engineering

Earthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels...

.

Political dimension of her activity

The research activities performed by the vessel have sometimes beside its scientific and economic dimensions also political extent with diplomatic or military tone.

She was sent in 1987 to Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 after Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 announced that it will start oil and gas exploration in the region. As Greece declared to intervene, Turkey responded that this would be cause of war. The tension calmed down later with mediation efforts of NATO and the USA.

2011 Eastern Mediterranean mission

Following the decision of the Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 government to start an initiative for oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

, Turkey signed an agreement with Northern Cyprus to do the same within Northern Cyprus' territorial waters

Territorial waters

Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...

. For this purpose, K. Piri Reis, which was commissioned by the Turkish government to conduct research work, departed on September 23, 2011 from its homeport in Urla

Urla

Urla may refer to:* Urla, İzmir, a district of İzmir Province inf Turkey* Urla, Raipur - a town in Chhatisgarh, India...

, İzmir Province

Izmir Province

İzmir Province is a province of Turkey in western Anatolia on the Aegean coast, whose capital is the city of İzmir. On the west it is surrounded by the Aegean sea, and it encloses the Gulf of İzmir. Its area is 11,973 km.2, population 3.948.848 . The population was 3,370,866 in 2000...

 and headed for Eastern Mediterranean

Eastern Mediterranean

The Eastern Mediterranean is a term that denotes the countries geographically to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. This region is also known as Greater Syria or the Levant....

.