ASMAR - Astilleros y Maestranzas the Chilean Naval shipyard and Ibercisa Deck Machinery from Vigo have signed an agreement for the supply of deck machinery for the Antartica-1 project, a modern oceanographic icebreaker of 111m length and 21m width.

The boat will operate at 3 knots on 20cm of snow -covered ice of up to 1m thick.  With a crew capacity of 12,the vessel will have a cargo space of 510.m3 in the hold: 400m3 for fuel storeage and a further 400m3 for pallet stowage. Required to operate at -30ºC, the vessel was designed by the Navy Department of Investigation and Development programmes, in conjunction with the Department of Naval Construction Projects at ASMAR with contributions from the Chilean Antartic Institute, the Army, Air Force and Chilean Navy. 

The new state of the art polar vessel will be operative from 2024. Ibercisa Deck Machinery will design, manufacture and supply the complete package of deck machinery which apart from oceanographic winches and hydrographics will also include LARS, gantrys and davits. The new icebreaker will have modern hydro-acoustics such as echo sounders, sonars, a bottom profiler, high precision currents and position acoustic profiler. It will also be equipped with microbiological and chemical laboratories as well as means for the collection, storeage and conservation of samples taken from the seabed. 

The boat will boast the highest crew safety standards recently set out in the "Polar Code" which regulates the fixtures and fittings for vessels navigating in arctic and antartic waters as well as the environmental regulations, water treatment, gas and residue emissions, to comply with the Madrid Protocol for the Antartic Treaty.  It will also comply with the standards required by the Convention for the Conservation of Living Marine Resources in the Antartic and will be overseen by skilled fishing inspectors for vessels operating in  waters regulated by the Convention.

With this modern unit, Chile will lead countries in the southern hemisphere in terms of equipment and infrastructure for the conservation of the marine environment.

The agreement was formalized in Vigo at  Ibercisa's headquarters by Alejandro König Scheihing, Director of Naval Construction, Christian Urcullu, Senior Engineer and Jorge Zapata, Senior Shipbuilding Project Manager.