The Falkor gears up to help fill void of sea studies

A stone’s throw from Aloha Tower on Thursday, Wendy Schmidt gazed from the stern of her private foundation’s research vessel, the Falkor, at the glistening turquoise-blue of Hono­lulu Harbor and pondered the journey ahead.

More ocean study must be done — and it needs to get done a lot more quickly, she said.

Furthermore, those who live thousands of miles from any ocean need to understand how the seas’ health affects everyone — not just those who live in coastal areas like Hawaii, she added.

"As the oceans are in peril from many sources, we think this is an urgent mission," said Schmidt, who’s the wife of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

She’s in town for a private symposium at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel this weekend organized by the couple’s science venture, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, that aims to help speed the pace of ocean research. The institute also looks to help fill the void left by dwindling federal research budgets, precisely at a time "when the oceans are under attack" and need study the most, Schmidt said.

The Falkor, meanwhile, is gearing up for a series of expeditions early next year to the Northwestern Hawaiian Island chain, to map the deeper reaches of the ocean floor in the Papa­ha­nau­moku­akea Marine National Monument. That project, proposed by University of Hawaii researchers, could lay the groundwork for future research projects that will rely on maps of the ocean floor there, institute officials say.

The Falkor docked in Hono­lulu on Wednesday a few paces from Gordon Biersch restaurant, and it’s the institute’s 272-foot-long mobile, globe-trotting headquarters. It was originally built in the early 1980s as a German coast guard ship. But after a $60 million retrofit by the institute — including a science control center room, flat-screen monitors that can display live images of the ocean floor, and even a reading lounge — its high-tech interior now resembles something out of a James Cameron movie.

"There aren’t enough ships in the world to accomplish all the science that needs to be done," said Eric King, the institute’s director of marine operations. The organization considers research proposals from around the world and then covers the costs of equipment and time aboard the vessel for those it selects, he said.

"If you’re in the right place at the right time … a ship isn’t your problem," Schmidt said Thursday.

The ship has gradually made its way to Hawaii from Germany during the past year and a half, with missions that included a deep-sea coral study in the Gulf of Mexico, hydrothermal vents in the Cayman Trench, a mapping project of the Cam­pe­che Escarpment off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico (where an asteroid once hit and is thought to have caused a massive extinction event) and others along the way. The institute aims to use the Falkor for about 10 years or so, Schmidt said.

The Falkor’s most recent voyage, from Seattle to Hono­lulu, took it through parts of the so-called Great Pacific garbage patch — a massive swirling vortex of plastic, trash and marine debris in the middle of the sea, largely out of sight from civilization.

Widespread pollution, climate change and rising acidity threaten the oceans’ health. But Schmidt said she believes technological leaps during the past quarter-century can spur better, faster research — and lead to greater global awareness of the challenges ahead.

Her institute plans to keep the Falkor in Hawaii through August, docked at Pier 45 in Hono­lulu Harbor when it’s not out at sea. The vessel also plans to explore the Mari­anas Trench off Guam later this year, institute officials said.