PFS Polarstern

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Career
Owner:	Alfred Wegener Institute
Laid down:	February 22, 1981
Finished:	December 1, 1982
Region:	Arctic and Antarctica
Home Port:	Bremerhaven, Germany
Call sign:	DBLK
General characteristics
Displacement:	17,300 t
Length:	117.91 m (386.84 ft)
Beam:	25.07 m (82.25 ft)
Draught:	11.21 m (36.77 ft)
Propulsion:	4 engines, 14,000 kW (20,000 bhp)
Speed:	15.5 kn (28.7 km/h)
Complement:	44 at most

PFS Polarstern (meaning pole star) is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. The Polarstern was commissioned in 1982 and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica.

Polarstern was built by the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft at Kiel and the Nobiskrug at Rendsburg. The ship has a length of 118 metres (387 feet).

Polarstern is a double-hulled icebreaker. It is operational at temperatures as low as -50 °C. (-58°F) Polarstern can break through ice 1.5 metres thick at a speed of 5 knots. Thicker ice must be broken by ramming.

Polarstern is also the name of the first track of Eisbrecher's (German for Icebreaker) first album, Eisbrecher. Throughout the track, narrations are given specifying the dimensions and specifications of an enormous ship, blowing the measurements of the real icebreaker out of proportion (ie: length of 236 metres).

On March 2nd 2008, one of the vessel's helicopters crashed on a routine flight to the Antarctic Neumayer II base. The German pilot and a Dutch researcher were killed, three other passengers injured.^{[1] [2]}

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Current position of the Polarstern
• Secrets of the seas: Jurassic shrimp, hairy crabs and giant microbes, news article featuring The Polarstern

[edit] References