Morocco Launches Advanced Oceanographic Research Vessel in Agadir Port

It is on royal order that the brand new jewel of oceanographic research bears the name of the Moroccan scholar Abou Al-Hassan Al-Marrakchi, a brilliant astronomer, mathematician and geographer, who died in 1262, reports the daily Al Massae.

Launched at the port of Agadir, this 48-meter long and 12-meter wide boat, equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, is thus put at the service of multidisciplinary scientific prospecting of the seabed. In the coming days, it will be deployed for the tracing of Moroccan maritime borders, to the great dismay of Spain which still does not digest the American recognition of the Moroccanness of the Moroccan Sahara.

A true mobile laboratory, the new ship will allow the National Institute of Fisheries Research (INRH) to deepen fisheries and scientific research at depths of up to 1,000 meters. It cost 480 million dirhams, thanks to a loan granted by the Japanese government, under an agreement signed between the governments of the two countries in 2017.