The Ocean Survey Vessel (OSV) Bold is operated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency

United States Environmental Protection Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...

. Originally commissioned as the USNS Victorious, it was renamed USNS Bold (T-AGOS-12) and was a Stalwart-class

Stalwart class ocean surveillance ship

Stalwart class auxiliary general ocean surveillance ships were a class of United States Naval Ship auxiliary support Ocean Surveillance Ships commissioned between April 1984 and January 1990...

 Modified Tactical Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance Ship of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

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Stalwart class ships were originally designed to collect underwater acoustical data in support of Cold war

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 anti-submarine warfare

Anti-submarine warfare

Anti-submarine warfare is a branch of naval warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, or other submarines to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines....

operations in the 1980s.

The ship was transferred to the EPA in 2004. The ship is equipped with sidescan sonar, underwater video, water and sediment sampling instruments in study of ocean and coastline. One of the major missions of the Bold is to monitor sites where materials dumped from dredging operations in U.S. ports for ecological impact.