Sailing ship in Port Angeles Harbor is also a research vessel

The twin-masted brigantine SV Kaisei is shown in the photo at right anchored in Port Angeles Harbor on Tuesday during a port of call on a mission to research floating wreckage from last year’s Japanese tsunami as part of a larger project to study ocean debris.

The steel-hulled vessel sails under the direction of the Ocean Voyages Institute, a group dedicated to promoting understanding of the world’s oceans, including a project to research the North Pacific Gyre — a massive field of plastic marine debris that floats about 600 miles off the West Coast.

The Kaisei recently visited a maritime festival in Richmond, B.C., near Vancouver.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, triggered a tsunami that left 15,867 people dead, 6,109 injured and 2,909 missing, according to the Japanese government.