Image of the Day: Old Gal Braving the Ice

This headspinning view shows AWI icebreaker RV Polarstern trailblazing through ice at the North Pole.

The ship reached the North Pole at 12:23pm (MESZ) on August 26th, and this is the 4th time for her to be at the North Pole.

RV Polarstern is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven. This old girl was commissioned in 1982 and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica.

She is scheduled for a well-earned retirement in 2017, when she will be replaced by Polarstern II . (After it was decided that the European Research Icebreaker Aurora Borealis is not going to be built in her original form.)

[mappress]

World Maritime News Staff, September 3, 2014; Image: AWI