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Polarstern

RV Polarstern
History
Name: Polarstern
Namesake: Pole star
Owner: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Operator: Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)
Port of registry: Bremerhaven,  Germany
Route: Arctic and Antarctica
Ordered: 28 August 1980
Builder: Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft at Kiel and the Nobiskrug at Rendsburg
Yard number: 707
Laid down: 22 September 1981
Launched: 6 January 1982
Completed: 8 December 1982
Identification:
Status: In service
General characteristics
Type: Icebreaker, research vessel
Tonnage: 12,614 GT
Displacement: 17,300 tonnes
Length: 117.91 m (386 ft 10 in)
Beam: 25.07 m (82 ft 3 in)
Draught: 11.21 m (36 ft 9 in)
Installed power: Four diesel engines, 14,000 kW (19,000 hp)
Speed: 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph)
Capacity: 124 persons
Crew: 44

RV Polarstern (meaning pole star) is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven. Polarstern was commissioned in 1982 and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica. It is planned that she will be replaced by Polarstern II around the year 2017, after it was decided that the European Research Icebreaker Aurora Borealis will not be built in her original form.

Polarstern was built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel and Nobiskrug in Rendsburg. The ship has a length of 118 metres (387 feet) and is a double-hulled icebreaker. She is operational at temperatures as low as -50°C. (-58°F) Polarstern can break through ice 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) thick at a speed of 5 knots. Thicker ice up to 3 m (9.8 ft) thick can be broken by ramming.

On 7 September 1991, Polarstern, assisted by the Swedish arctic icebreaker Oden reached the North Pole as the first conventional powered vessels. Both scientific parties and crew took oceanographic and geological samples and had a common tug of war and a football game on an ice floe. Polarstern again reached the pole exactly 10 years later together with the USCGC Healy. She returned for a third time on 22 August 22 2011 at exactly 9.42 a.m. This time she reported the most frequently recurring ice thickness at 0.9 m compared with 2 m in 2001, which corresponds to the long-term average.


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