Yamaha Motor Corporation subsidiaries Yamaha Marine and Skeeter Boats have handed over a new centre console boat to Florida State University's (FSU) Coastal and Marine Laboratory.
The boat will be used by researchers tasked with studying the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on oyster habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and Apalachicola Bay.
Apalachicola Bay was the gulf's leading producer of oysters before the oil spill.
With grant money from the Deepwater Horizon settlement fund, the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory is now studying the collapse of the ecosystem and developing a vast habitat restoration project that seeks to bring the bay back to its previous productive state and boost other systems throughout the gulf.
The boat has a length of seven metres, a beam of 2.4 metres, a draught of 25 centimetres, a displacement of 1,300 kilograms, and a 186kW outboard engine.
