Description

R/P FLIP is a semi-submersible open ocean research platform that was owned by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) and operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The platform is 108 meters (355 ft) long and is designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90°, resulting in only the front 17 meters (55 ft) of the platform pointing up out of the water, with bulkheads becoming decks. When flipped, most of the buoyancy for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is stable and mostly immune to wave action, similar to a spar buoy.