USNS Victorious (T-AGOS-19) is a Victorious-class ocean surveillance ship which was acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1991 and assigned to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) Special Missions Program.
Victorious was built by McDermott Shipyards, Morgan City, Louisiana. She was laid down on 12 April 1988 and launched on 3 May 1988 and was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 13 August 1991.
Victorious was manned by 19 civilian mariners under the control of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and staffed with five sponsors.
She is of a small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) design, similar to a catamaran, which provides a stable platform for towing the ship's SURTASS sonar arrays.
On March 4, 2009, Victorious was involved in one of a string of incidents between US research ships and Chinese ships. While operating in international waters, roughly 120Â miles off the coast of mainland China in the Yellow Sea, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate the entire length of Victorious several times. The following day, a Chinese Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted 12Â fly-bys of Victorious at an altitude of about 400 feet (120Â m) and a range of 500Â yards.