UMass Boston

The R/V Portnoy was named after Dr. John Portnoy, a retired salt marsh ecologist who worked at Cape Cod National Seashore for nearly three decades. Portnoy performed some of the seminal work in these systems, focusing on the shallow water environments in which this vessel was built to work. Designed in conjunction with CCNS scientists, this pontoon boat was built on Cape Cod to map in water depths <1m.  After successful proof-of-concept surveys in 2016 to map the Herring River system in Wellfleet Harbor, this newest addition to the CCS fleet was named in Portnoy’s honor to recognize his ongoing work on the restoration of this valuable wetland/estuarine system.