Contract crew size was 24 instead of 70 for the larger ships and the military and Naval Oceanographic Office civilian hydrographic detachment could be decreased from 80 to 10.

With reliance on the Global Positioning System (GPS) for navigation and modern multibeam shallow-water sonar (SIMRAD EM100) and updated computer hardware and software for data processing the ships were expected to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week collecting more soundings per mile than the older ships in coastal areas at depths up to 600 m (328 fathoms; 1,969 ft).

Those MC&G requirements support all military operations and also civilian mariners with products outside the U.S. territorial waters that are the charting responsibility of NOAA.

[3][6] The John McDonnell aided in the location of two downed F-16s in the Northern Persian Gulf in 1993 and the wreckage of a Navy helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz in 1994.

[4] As of June 2016, the overhauled and re-christened Seafreeze America is currently owned and operated by United States Seafoods, LLC and serves as a fishing trawler in the Bering Sea sector.