Research aboard the RV Ernest Holt around Bear Island (Norway) in the Arctic established an important link between fishable cod concentrations and water temperatures.

[1] In her later years she carried out some of the first exploratory voyages to the deep water grounds of the continental slope to the west of Britain.

[3] The new ship was launched at Selby (Yorkshire) on 9 June 1948, by Mrs A.T.A Dobson, wife of the then Fisheries Secretary.

[3] Trials were carried out in the Humber in December 1948 and the ship sailed from Grimsby on her maiden voyage on 4 January 1949.

[3] Fisheries survey logbooks from RV Ernest Holt research campaigns in the 1950s have now been fully digitized by scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, revealing how cod in the Barents Sea and around Bear Island (Norway) responded to changing seawater temperatures during the 20th century.