Oden (icebreaker)

Icebreaker Oden
Career (Sweden)
Name:	Oden
Owner:	Swedish Maritime Administration
Builder:	Götaverken, Arendal, Sweden
Completed:	1988
Homeport:	Norrköping, Sweden
Identification:	IMO number: 8700876 MMSI 265182000 Call sign: SMLQ
Status:	In service
General characteristics [1]
Type:	Icebreaker
Tonnage:	9,438 GRT 4906 DWT
Displacement:	11,000–13,000 tonnes
Length:	107.8 m (354 ft)
Beam:	31.0 m (101.7 ft) (max) 25.0 m (82.0 ft) (amidships)
Draft:	7.0–8.5 m (23.0–27.9 ft)
Depth:	12 m (39 ft)
Ice class:	DNV POLAR-20
Main engines:	4 × Sulzer 8ZAL4OS (4 × 4,500 kW)
Auxiliary generators:	4 × Sulzer 6AT25H (4 × 1,270 kW)[2]
Propulsion:	2 × LIPS CPP
Speed:	16.0 kn (29.6 km/h; 18.4 mph) (open water) 3 kn (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) (1.9 m (6.2 ft) level ice)
Range:	30,000 nmi (56,000 km; 35,000 mi) at 13.0 kn (24.1 km/h; 15.0 mph)
Endurance:	100 days
Capacity:	65 passengers 40 TEU
Crew:	15

The Oden is a large Swedish icebreaker, built in 1988 for the Swedish Maritime Administration. It is named after the asa god Odin. First built to clear a passage through the ice of the Baltic sea for cargo ships, it was later modified to serve as a research vessel. Equipped with its own helicopter and manned by 15 crew members it has ample capacity to carry laboratory equipment and 80 passengers, functioning independently in harsh Polar ice packs of the Arctic and Antarctic seas. It was the first non-nuclear surface vessel to reach the North Pole (in 1991), together with the German research icebreaker RV Polarstern.^[3][4]

The Oden has participated in numerous scientific expeditions in the Canadian arctic archipelago.^[5] The ship is currently involved in an Antarctic research project.^{[citation needed]}

Expeditions

Oden Antarctic Expedition 2008

From November 25, 2008 to January 12, 2009 researcher Tish Yager and teacher Jeff Peneston as members of an international research team participated in an expedition on board of Oden Icebreaker collecting a range of data in rarely traveled areas of the Antarctic seas and coastline, including the Amundsen and eastern Ross Seas. They studied production and destruction of greenhouse gases and their effects on sea ice microorganisms. The study was designed to allow future researchers to better understand and monitor the Antarctic region. ^[6]

Oden Antarctic Expedition 2007

Lollie Garay a prominent teacher of Earth and Space Science at Redd School in Houston, Texas together with Drs. Robert Sherell and Walker Smith joined a team of international scientists on the Oden icebreaker. Dr. Sherell leading the US science group of the expedition is a professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Geological Sciences at Rutgers University. He is well known for conducting research on primary producers and their distribution of trace elements in the water column of the ocean, while Dr. Walker Smith is a professor of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who studies the year-to-year changes in the biology, physics, and chemistry of Antarctica's Ross Sea. The joint project was a co-operative endeavor between the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to collect a range of data in rarely traveled areas of the Antarctic seas and coastline. On this voyage the international research team studied the oceanography and bio geochemistry of the region, with emphasis on the processes that control the growth and fate of phytoplankton in the ocean. ^[7]

References

1. ^ Swedish Maritime Administration (17 September 2011). "Research Vessel/Icebreaker Oden". http://www.sjofartsverket.se/en/About-us/Activities/Icebreaking/Our-Icebreakers/Research-VesselIcebreaker-Oden/Icebreaker-Oden/. 
2. ^ American Shipbuilders (17 September 2011). "DIESEL POWER REVIEW". http://www.americanshipbuilders.com/propulsion/diesel-power-review-571. 
3. ^ ASCOS - Arctic Summer Cloud Ocean Study
4. ^ Icebreakers
5. ^ M.-L. Timmermans, Chris Garrett (28 October 2005). "Evolution of the Deep Water in the Canadian Basin in the Arctic Ocean" (PDF). Journal of Physical Oceanography. http://maelstrom.seos.uvic.ca/abstracts/06CG10.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-01. "Acknowledgments. Data used here were collected by the support teams of 1991–2002 Arctic expeditions aboard the Swedish polar class icebreaker Oden, and the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent." ^{[dead link]}
6. ^ Oden Antarctic Expedition '08|Polar TREC
7. ^ Oden Antarctic Expedition '07|Polar TREC

External links

• Sjöfartsverkets site describing Oden
• Article on Antarctic Research featuring Oden. Science, 19 August 2011.

Gallery

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