ARA Almirante Irízar
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Argentina
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| Name: | Almirante Irízar |
| Namesake: | Julián Irízar |
| Owner: | Argentine Navy |
| Ordered: | 17 December 1975 |
| Builder: | Wärtsilä Helsinki Shipyard, Finland |
| Yard number: | 420 |
| Laid down: | 4 July 1977 |
| Launched: | 3 February 1978 |
| Completed: | 15 December 1978 |
| In service: | 1979–2007; 2017– |
| Identification: | IMO number: 7533628 |
| Status: | Undergoing sea trials after refit |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type: | Icebreaker |
| Displacement: | 14,899 tons |
| Length: | 121.3 m (398 ft) |
| Beam: | 25.2 m (83 ft) |
| Draft: | 9.5 m (31 ft) |
| Installed power: | 4 × Wärtsilä-Pielstick 8PC2-5L (4 × 3,828 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: |
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| Endurance: | 60 days |
| Complement: | 245 |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
Plessey AWS-2 radar |
| Aircraft carried: |
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| Aviation facilities: | Helipad and hangar |
| General characteristics (changes in refit) | |
| Installed power: | 4 × MAN 9L32/40 (4 × 4,500 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Complement: | 313 |
ARA Almirante Irízar is a large icebreaker of the Argentine Navy. She was built in Finland in 1975.
A fire broke out in the auxiliary generator compartment in 2007, putting it out of commission for nearly a decade.
The ship was named after Julián Irízar. In 1903, when he held the rank of Lieutenant, he commanded the Argentine corvette during a successful mission to rescue the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of Professor Otto Nordenskjöld, after the expedition had been trapped by the Antarctic winter.
The vessel was built at the Wärtsilä Helsinki Shipyard in Finland, under a contract signed in 1975 between the Argentine Navy and the shipyard. Irízar was launched in February 1978 and was formally commissioned on December that year, arriving in Argentina on 23 March 1979. She replaced the elderly icebreaker ARA General San Martín, which was then retired from active service.
Almirante Irízar's peacetime missions include annual campaigns to resupply and rotate the personnel assigned to the Argentine Antarctic outposts, as well as conducting and supporting scientific endeavors in Antarctica. She has also conducted several passenger tours to Patagonia and the Antarctic.
The ship's homeport is at the Argentine Navy's Buenos Aires Naval Anchorage (Spanish: Apostadero Naval Buenos Aires) in the capital city of Buenos Aires.
During the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas) the vessel served as a troop transport and then as a hospital ship, a role for which her crew included medical personnel from the Argentine Army in addition to the naval medical staff. After the end of the war, she was used to return injured Argentine personnel back to the mainland.
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Wikipedia