RV Polarstern is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany. Polarstern was built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel and Nobiskrug in Rendsburg, was commissioned in 1982, and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica. The ship has a length of 118 metres 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 thick at a speed of 5 knots. Thicker ice of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) can be broken by ramming.
The South Sandwich Trench is a deep arcuate trench in the South Atlantic Ocean lying 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the east of the South Sandwich Islands. It is the deepest trench of the Southern Atlantic Ocean, and the second-deepest of the Atlantic Ocean after the Puerto Rico Trench. Since the trench extends south of the 60th parallel south, it also contains the deepest point in the Southern Ocean.
Gauss was a ship built in Germany for polar exploration, named after the mathematician and physical scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Purchased by Canada in 1904, the vessel was renamed CGS Arctic. As Arctic, the vessel made annual trips to the Canadian Arctic until 1925. The ship's fate is disputed among the sources, but all claim that by the mid-1920s, the vessel was out of service.
The research ship had origins in the early voyages of exploration. By the time of James Cook's Endeavour, the essentials of what today we would call a research ship are clearly apparent. In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. The Endeavour was a sturdy boat, well designed and equipped for the ordeals she would face, and fitted out with facilities for her research personnel, Joseph Banks. And, as is common with contemporary research vessels, Endeavour carried out more than one kind of research, including comprehensive hydrographic survey work.
Alfred Merz was an Austrian geographer, oceanographer and director of the Institute of Marine Science in Berlin. He died of pneumonia in Buenos Aires while on an expedition to survey the South Atlantic and is buried in Perchtoldsdorf. Merz Peninsula is named after him.
Maria Vasilyevna Klenova was a Russian and Soviet marine geologist and one of the founders of Russian marine science and contributor to the first Soviet Antarctic atlas.
RV Sonne is a former German fishing trawler converted into a research vessel by Schichau Unterweser AG, doing mostly geoscience-related work for a variety of commercial and scientific clients. She was registered in Bremen. In 2015 she was sold to the Argentine institute CONICET and was renamed ARA Austral (Q-21). A new geoscientific research ship, also called RV Sonne, replaced her role in Germany that same year.
The first icebreaker Krassin, or Krasin, was built for the Imperial Russian Navy as Svyatogor. She had a long, distinguished career in rescue operations, as well as a pathfinder and explorer of the Northern Sea Route. She has been fully restored to operating condition and is now a museum ship in Saint Petersburg.
RV Atlantis II is a research vessel formerly operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The ship was built in 1962. She was used as the support vessel for the Alvin submersible for many years, and retired from Woods Hole service in 1996. After a period of inactivity in New Orleans, she was transferred to the travel adventure company Outlander Expeditions in 2006. In 1986 she was used by Dr. Robert Ballard as mother-ship to DSV Alvin when Ballard and team surveyed the RMS Titanic wreck for the first time. The Titanic expedition was sponsored by National Geographic.
SV Mandalay is a three-masted schooner measuring 163.75 ft (49.91 m) pp, with a wrought iron hull. It was built as the private yacht Hussar (IV), and would later become the research vessel Vema, one of the world's most productive oceanographic research vessels. The ship currently sails as the cruising yacht Mandalay in the Caribbean.
RV Horizon, ex Auxiliary Fleet Tug ATA-180, was a Scripps Institution of Oceanography research vessel from 1949 through 1968. During that time she made 267 cruises and logging 610,522 miles (982,540 km) spending 4,207 days at sea.
The German Meteor expedition was an oceanographic expedition that explored the South Atlantic ocean from the equatorial region to Antarctica in 1925–1927. Depth soundings, water temperature studies, water samples, studies of marine life and atmospheric observations were conducted.
The RV MTA Sismik 1 is a decommissioned Turkish research vessel belonging to Istanbul Technical University. She is operated by its Faculty of Maritime for training purposes. Originally, she was owned by the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA) in Ankara and operated by its division of Geophysical Directorate for subsea geophysical exploration.
RRS Discovery II was a British Royal Research Ship which, during her operational lifetime of about 30 years, carried out considerable hydrographical and marine biological survey work in Antarctic waters and the Southern Ocean in the course of the Discovery Investigations research program. Built in Port Glasgow, launched in 1928 and completed in 1929, she was the first purpose-built oceanographic research vessel and was named after Robert Falcon Scott's 1901 ship, RRS Discovery.
The RV Meteor is a multidisciplinary research vessel operating mainly on the high sea. She is owned by the German state represented by its Federal Ministry of Education and Research and registered in Hamburg.
SMS Meteor was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the North German Federal Navy that was launched in 1865. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Meteor took part in the Battle of Havana in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. There, she battled the French aviso Bouvet; both vessels were lightly damaged, though Bouvet was compelled to disengage after a shot from Meteor disabled her engine. After the war, Meteor returned to Germany, where her career was limited; she served briefly as a survey vessel. From 1873 to 1877, she was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea as a station ship in Constantinople during a period of tensions in the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Germany in 1877, she was decommissioned, converted into a coal hulk and expended as a target ship some time later.
SMS Comet was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the Prussian Navy that was launched in 1860. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Comet served during the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, part of the conflicts that unified Germany. The ship was present at, but was only lightly engaged in the Battle of Jasmund during the Second Schleswig War. She served in a variety of roles during peacetime, including fishery protection and survey work. Comet went on one lengthy deployment abroad, with an assignment to the Mediterranean Sea from 1876 to 1879. She saw little active service after returning to Germany and was decommissioned and hulked in 1881. The vessel remained in the navy's inventory until at least 1891, being broken up sometime thereafter.
SMS Delphin was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the Prussian Navy that was launched in 1860. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Delphin served during the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, part of the conflicts that unified Germany. The ship was present at, but was only lightly engaged in the Battle of Jasmund during the Second Schleswig War. The ship spent much of the rest of her career in the Mediterranean Sea, going on three lengthy deployments there in 1865–1866, 1867–1870, and 1871–1873. During the last tour, she took part in operations off the coast of Spain with an Anglo-German squadron during the Third Carlist War, where she helped to suppress forces rebelling against the Spanish government. For the rest of the 1870s, she served as a survey vessel in the North and Baltic Seas before being decommissioned in August 1881, stricken from the naval register the following month, and subsequently broken up for scrap.
SMS Drache was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the Prussian Navy that was launched in 1860. Budgetary problems delayed her completion until 1869, and she first entered service during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, though she saw no significant action against the French Navy. Drache spent most of her career, between 1872 and 1887, conducting survey work in the North Sea, which later proved to be instrumental to the operations of German U-boats and minelayers during World War I. Drache was ultimately decommissioned in 1887, reduced to a coal hulk, and then expended as a target for the torpedo boat D5 in 1889. Her wreck was later raised and broken up.
RV Atair is a research vessel owned and operated by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany (BSH). She entered service in 2021 and replaces a 1987-built research vessel also named Atair.
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
