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The SY Hiawatha was a steam yacht chartered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (United Kingdom) - Directorate of Fisheries, now known as the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in 1914 to carry out fishery investigations. Over her long lifetime she had many changes of ownership and name changes (and was variously known as the Nora, Hiawatha, Clara, Polygon, La Valette, Akbas and Yeni Gundogdu).

Construction and early ownership
Built as the steam yacht Nora by Charles Mitchell & Co, Low Walker, Newcastle Upon Tyne. She was launched on 21 December 1879 (Yard Number 392), but was renamed as the SY Hiawatha in 1888 when she was taken into the ownership of Donald Horne Macfarlane and re-registered in Southampton. Her dimensions were 339grt, 219nrt, 176.8 x 26.1 x 13.4 ft and she was powered by a single screw propeller and a steam engine constructed by R & W Hawthorn, Newcastle.

Service as a fisheries research vessel
In January 1910, on instruction from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury passed responsibility for North Sea fishery investigations to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries (later MAFF), who in-turn were required to come to an agreement with the Marine Biological Association (MBA) as to how scientific investigations could continue into the future, in support of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). During the course of the financial year 1912-13 a grant was made available to allow the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to charter the SY Hildegarde for a series of dedicated studies into the adverse consequences of trawling on herring populations. By 1914 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries also started to make use of the steam yacht Hiawatha (Captain W.H. Stewart). Surveys were made throughout the southern North Sea (as far North as the Northumberland coast, along the Dutch coast and around East Anglia) focused on plankton sampling and demersal fish resources – using a variety of bottom trawl nets. Nearly all of this work came to an abrupt end in August 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War.

Scientist’s logbooks from these historical surveys are now held by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in Lowestoft and datasets have recently been digitized as part of the Trawling through Time initiative.

Additional survey work was carried out by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on sprat and small herring (whitebait) in 1915 and 1916 aboard the chartered fishing vessel SS Unity (LO 170) although restricted to the East Anglian coast and Thames estuary.

Later ownership and usage
Over her long lifetime she had many changes of ownership and name changes (and was variously known as the Clara, Polygon, La Valette, Akbas and Yeni Gundogdu), but between 1913 and 1915 she had reverted to the name Hiawatha and was owned by Noel Pemberton Billing and registered in London. In 1916 she was converted to a salvage vessel and between November 1917 to 1919 she was employed on Admiralty service as the La Valette. She was eventually (in 1966) converted into a cargo vessel and ended her life as B. Kartal in Turkey, where she was finally broken up in 1982.