RV Wim Wolff

The RV Wim Wolff was launched in 2024. With this new research vessel, marine science in the Netherlands now has a comfortable, innovative and sustainable 37-metre-long ship for research in the shallow waters of the Wadden Sea, the South-Western Delta and the North Sea coast.

A research vessel installs a yellow pole in shallow water using a crane on deck.

Specifications

  • Length overall: 36.95 m
  • Beam: 10 m
  • Max. Draft: 1.20m
  • Gross Tonnage approx. 420T
  • Working deck area approx. 125m2
  • Max. number of berths: 16
  • Service speed: 8 knots 
For more information, please contact the NMF coordinator
Luchtfoto van een onderzoeksschip dat langs de droogvallende wadplaten van de Waddenzee vaart

RV Wim Wolff in the shallow Waddensea (photo: Flying Focus)

Construction

The design brief for the RV Wim Wolff was presented in 2018 to the NWO Executive Board. In January 2021, after a careful selection process, Thecla Bodewes Shipyards was chosen to construct the vessel in Kampen and Harlingen. On February 15th 2024 the RV Wim Wolff was christened in the harbor of the NIOZ by Wim Wolff's five-year old daughter Charly Wolff and assisted by Caroline Visser, board member of NWO, the Dutch Research Council. 

Find a time line and the milestones of the construction here
Vrouw en kind houden een gekleurd lint vast voor de doop van het onderzoeksschip Wim Wolff.

Baptize of RV Wim Wolff by Caroline Visser and Charly Wolff (photo: NIOZ, Evalien Weterings)

Name

The successor of the RV Navicula is named after Wadden ecologist Wim Wolff (1940-2018). Wolff’s scientific career started in 1965 at the Delta Institute in Zeeland. After that, from 1975 onwards he headed the Department of Estuarine Ecology at the Rijksinstituut voor Natuurbeheer (RIN) on Texel in the NIOZ building. He compiled the “Ecology of the Wadden Sea”, which would later become the authoritative reference work about the Wadden Sea, written in collaboration with many researchers from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

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Nadenkende man met hoge laarzen, zittend op een omgekeerde emmer in ondiep water

Wim Wolff at work in Mauritania (photo: NIOZ)