All original propulsion and steering machinery was removed and the ship reequipped for precise navigation and station keeping. Propulsion and steering was by means of four 12-cylinder diesel engines that powered four rotating thrusters mounted on vertical shafts. She was configured as a cable laying and implantment vessel with a cable drum located in the bow along with a cable guide going over the stern. The four thrusters allowed the vessel to stay "on station". When underway, however, only the two bow or stern thrusters were operated at any one time. The vertical thruster shafts increased the vessel's draft significantly. The thrusters were easily damaged by impact with the bottom. The conversion radically changed the outward appearance of the vessel and the length was shortened to with 873 tons displacement. The vessel was put into service by the Military Sealift Command as USNS "Naubuc" operated under contract with the Navy's Supervisor of Salvage by Merritt Division of Pacific Marine Salvage Company assigned to Naval Underwater Systems Center (NUSC). "Naubuc" was assigned to implant and lay cable off Bermuda for the Long Range Acoustic Propagation Project (LRAPP) "Test Bed" three dimensional suspended array that took place in December 1970. The array reused components of the earlier unsuccessful "Sea Spider" acoustic experiment array that was attempted in 1969 north of Hawaii in the Pacific. The Bermuda array reused "Sea Spider" components and was essentially the same trapezoidal taut cable configuration anchored in of water with the horizontal component suspended below the surface. The "Test Bed" array was successfully planted but it was not successful due to cable shorts caused by twisting and kinking of the cable to shore. During the summer of 1971 the vessel supported CURV III in recovery of inoperative underwater acoustic array towers of the Azores Fixed Acoustic Range (AFAR) in the Azores off Santa Maria Island. "Naubuc" was last used as a support vessel for a cable underwater recovery vehicle in the Tongue of the Ocean, off Andros Island. On 1 September 1975 "Naubuc" was struck from the Navy List and sold by Navy Sale.