Second World War The ship was
laid down as
Satinwood (YN-89), a net tender of the , on 1 May 1943 at the
American Car and Foundry Co. in
Wilmington, Delaware. On 17 January 1944, while still under construction, the ship was reclassified as a net laying ship and redesignated AN-76.
Satinwood was
launched on 23 May and completed on 5 August. After delivery to the U.S. Navy on 5 August, she was transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease the same day and
commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS
Pretext (Z284). Upon completion of wartime duty with the United Kingdom, she was returned to the U.S. Navy on 22 November 1945 at
Norfolk, Virginia. Struck from the
Naval Vessel Register on 28 March 1946, she was transferred to the
United States Maritime Commission and sold on 20 July 1947 to the
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey for $75,000.
Postwar career After being purchased by the
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), she was renamed
John Biscoe. After her first season of resupplying the FIDS bases in
Stonington Island and
Hope Bay, her hull was sheathed in of greenheart timber to better cope with the ice conditions. In the subsequent years she made a number of summer voyages to the Antarctic to relieve the FIDS stations. However, a ship with a longer range and greater cargo- and passenger-carrying capacity was required, and the ship's name was returned to
Pretext in 1956 to free the name
John Biscoe for
a new vessel. In June 1962 she was sold again, renamed the
Arctic Endeavour and fitted out for sealing work in the Arctic. In March 1976 she was involved in a standoff with
Greenpeace activists
Bob Hunter and
Paul Watson off
Newfoundland. She foundered off
Catalina, Newfoundland on 11 November 1982. ==See also==