Akademik Shokalskiy
Akademik Shokalskiy in the port of Ushuaia
Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
IMO no. 8010336
The built in 1982 in Finland Akademik Shokalskiy is a eisverstärktes ( ice class UL/1A Super) cruise ship Akademik - Shuleykin class, which was named after the Russian oceanographers July Mikhailovich Schokalski.
Construction
The Akademik Shokalskiy has a conventional machinery, are involved in the two six-cylinder diesel engines through a gearbox to a propeller. To stabilize the ship is equipped with a bilge tank.
The ship has three passenger decks over 28 outside cabins with different equipment and dining room, bar, library and sauna.
Sister ships of the Akademik Shokalskiy are Akademik Shuleykin, Professor Multanovskiy, Arnold Veimer, Professor Molchanov, Akademik Gamburtsyev, Geolog Dmitriy Nalivkin, Professor Polshkov, Akademik Golitsyn and Professor Khromov.
History
Originally, the Akademik Shokalskiy was used in marine research. It comes after several reconstruction and modernization measures as a cruise ship in Antarctica mainly used; organized by the Australian company Aurora Expeditions.
Incidents
On December 8, 2013 left the ship with 74 people aboard, including 26 tourists, the port of Bluff, New Zealand to follow its route of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson, which took place a century earlier. The ship was located in the Commonwealth Bay and was already on the way back, when the weather suddenly changed on 24 December and chilly easterly wind thick ice floating in the bay, whereupon the ship on 25 December 2800 km south of Hobart from ice was included.
The Akademik Shokalskiy rushed which lies in the region icebreaker Xue Long, Aurora Australis and the French L' Astrolabe to help. The Xue Long took the first rescue attempt. This they had to for safety on 28 December only six and a half miles from the Akademik Shokalskiy cancel removed because the ice was too thick. The next rescue attempt also failed: when the Aurora Australis was approached to within ten nautical miles of the Akademik Shokalskiy, she was also forced to cancel due to a snow storm their rescue attempt, as to continue the journey would have been too dangerous. From January 2, 2014, the Kamov Ka -32 helicopters aboard the Xue Long flew to the occluded vessel and brought the passengers into groups aboard the Aurora Australis to return with these to Australia. On January 3, 2014 announced the Xue Long that they have become firmly seated itself and the Aurora Australis should be ready for a relief mission in the vicinity. Thus, the return journey of the passengers of the Akademik Shokalskiy delayed further. On the morning of January 5, 2014, the icebreaker Polar Star of the United States Coast Guard left the port of Sydney, to free the trapped ships.
On January 7, 2014 it was reported that both ships are no longer stuck after the wind had shifted and thereby columns were formed in the ice.