Since the establishment of Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) in 1968, the technical supporting to SEAFDEC Member Countries (MCs) on the monitoring of fisheries resource, marine environmental situation and human resource development by SEAFDEC’s research vessels has been on the major mandates of SEAFDEC. Since year 2004, M.V. SEAFDEC 2 has been granted by Government of Japan to support SEAFDEC MCs on fisheries resources and marine environmental survey in order to fulfill the needs of the SEAFDEC MCs. The major outputs from the survey is cruise reports, technical documents on fisheries resource stock status marine biodiversity, and other specific requirements, e.g. oceanography and marine environment, and etc. SEAFDEC has expected that the results from the survey could facilitate the establishment and implementation of comprehensive policy for sustainable management and development of marine capture fisheries both national, sub-regional and regional. The major output is included with the adequate numbers of researcher on various field, i.e. fisheries resources and marine environmental survey, oceanographers, fisheries biologist, fishing gear technologist, navigator and marine engineer, who has skill and experience to support the shipboard survey.

In order to achieve the expected outputs as mentioned above, SEAFDEC Training Department (TD) works in close collaboration with the SEAFDEC Member Countries and potential partners at national, sub-regional, and regional levels has supported MCs on fisheries resources and marine environmental survey. M.V. SEAFDEC 2 as major research vessel has carried out sixty (60) cruises with four (4) major components:
(1) Marine fisheries resources research survey;
(2) Marine environmental oceanographic research survey;
(3) Onboard navigation and marine engineering training; and
(4) Sea trial on fishing operation, oceanographic instruments, and fishing vessel.

In 2002, the Government of Japan approved the construction of a new fishery research and training vessel namely “M.V. SEAFDEC 2” along with procurement of the requisite fishing gear, fishing machinery, and survey equipment with the main purposes to conduct fishery resource and oceanographic research surveys and shipboard training on such topic in ASEAN Countries. Subsequently, the construction of a research vessel, M.V. SEAFDEC 2, was completed in 2003. Since 2004, research survey on fisheries resource exploration and sea trial on sampling gears, fishery oceanography, and other activities related to marine capture fisheries were conducted by M.V. SEAFDEC 2 in collaboration with SEAFDEC Member Countries. In a broader sense, the achievement of M.V. SEAFDEC 2 includes strengthen technical cooperation for effective fisheries and environmental management in the ASEAN region through the enhancement of research capability.

Due to increased operational cost for using M.V. SEAFDEC 2 that mainly caused by increased fuel price, the 40^th Meeting of SEAFDEC Council (2009) agreed that the country that request to use M.V. SEAFDEC 2 should be responsible for the cost incurred by the vessel. Since 2010, the modified costsharing policy was therefore applied that fuel consumption of the vessel for the entire duration of the research/survey including cursing to and back to the requesting country will be responsible by the requested country (s).

At the 45^th Meeting of the Council of SEAFDEC in year 2013, SEAFDEC/TD proposed some revisions of the Guidelines on the Cost Sharing Policy for operation of the M.V. SEAFDEC 2. The results was that sharing of data collected from the cruise survey using M.V. SEAFDEC 2 should be finalized at the planning meeting before the cruise survey between the requesting country and SEAFDEC. Such basic data will be kept confidential and to be used only for the SEAFDEC regional database and for future regional analysis.

In year 2018, the 41^th Program Committee Meeting of SEAFDEC has adopted 2 major cruises of M.V. SEAFDEC 2, i.e. 1) Small Pelagic Fishery Resources Assessment in Viet Nam Marine Waters and 2) the Utilization of the M.V. SEAFDEC 2 for the Sea Trial of Mid-water Trawl Using M.V. SEAFDEC 2 in Sarawak Waters, Malaysia. Actual days, however occurred in year 2019 is different from the plan in the PCM 41^st. Due to budget constraint, Directorate of Fisheries, Viet Nam needed to postpone the cruise in 2019 to 2020. Government of Thailand has submitted the request in mid of 2019 to utilize M.V. SEAFDEC 2 for the shipboard training on Observer onboard Program. With the international concern on the marine debris and plastic in the ocean, SEAFDEC Training Department supported by Japanese Government through Japanese Trust Fund plans to carried out a shipboard survey in December 2019. Expected total number of services days of M.V. SEAFDEC 2 in year 2019 are 60 days.

SEAFDEC Training Department has conducted the capacity improvement of M.V. SEAFDEC 2 after her service at SEAFDEC for 14 years. Modern navigation equipment, parts of engines and fishing accessories have been installed onboard M.V. SEAFDEC 2. In this connection, SEAFDEC engineers was granted for the training in Japan. They gained their knowledge on modern instruments and engine overall maintenance. In year 2020 SEAFDEC will continue improve the vessel capacity in fishing and oceanographic instruments and continue support MCs on marine fisheries and environment information collection by research vessel, and to promote the offshore fisheries resources exploration through the research and human resources capacity by utilization of SEAFDEC’s Training and Research Vessels.

Shipboard activities by using M.V. SEAFDEC 2 are available for female and male researcher. However, numbers of female researcher are less than male researcher regarding to the number of bathroom and toilet arrangement onboard. Generally, the quota for female researcher is 4 persons by limited by 1 bedroom with 4 bunkers.