The cooling of precooked skipjack Katsuwonus pelamis is a critical thermal process in tuna canning because it affects the quality and yield of the canned tuna, as well as productivity. The combined method of vacuum cooling followed by water spraying (VC-WS) was investigated to increase cooling rates, and prevent loss of yield of the precooked tuna during vacuum cooling. For VC-WS, the precooked skipjack was cooled to $30^{circ}C$ by vacuum at 31 mmHg and then wetted by spraying water for 2 min. The effects of VC-WS on cooling times, cooling loss, color, texture and lipid oxidation of the precooked tuna were compared with conventional spray cooling (SC).The cooling times for precooked skipjack from $75^{circ}C-30^{circ}C$ were 11 min for VC-WS and 145 min for SC. The cooling losses were 1.7 % for VC-WS and 1.6 % for SC. Peroxide and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values of VC-WS were lower than those of SC. The loin of the VC-WS-treated skipjack was brighter and harder than the SC loin, as indicated by higher lightness and hardness values. Based on these results, we believe that the VC-WS process could compensate for the cooling loss of vacuum cooling and minimize changes in quality that occur during cooling of precooked skipjack tuna.