A polar vessel has just been christened in France, in the port of Lorient. The event was attended by a host of polar experts before the ship set sail for the Arctic, where it will operate north of Svalbard starting this summer.
A small hinged gangway descends along the rounded sides of the Tara Polar Station. The slope is quite steep and the hull is high above the water: this is a workboat designed for ice. She is about to be christened. The crowd gathers at the barriers on the quay in Lorient harbor on Thursday, April 24.
Member of Parliament Jimmy Pahun, the mayor of the city, the ambassador for the poles, construction site managers, sponsors, teams from the Tara Ocean Foundation, and journalists flock to the pontoon of honor where the ship is moored.
Heïdi Sevestre, Mathieu Tordeur, Nathalie Metzler, Patrice Godon, Éric Brossier, France Pinczon du Sel—there are many “people of the poles” (if such an expression exists) who have come to see the floating station being launched. A ship for some, a station for others, it will receive the blessing of its godparents, astronaut Thomas Pesquet and philanthropist Agnès B. The bottle of champagne is smashed against the hull. Photos and applause: the ship is given a soul to bring it luck, as maritime tradition dictates.
Twenty millimeters of aluminum guarantee the hull’s strength, along with a compact reinforcement structure to withstand the Arctic ice. It is not intended to operate in our latitudes: too round and bulbous to face the open oceans, it will enter the ice of Svalbard this summer, where it will find its stability. A station, one might say, since when balanced, the ship is heaving and drifting, caught in the currents of a frozen sea.
The visible welds give it a rustic appearance: 47 kilometers in total, according to the Chantiers Mécaniques de Normandie shipyard. The entrance airlock is a comma-shaped space where anything wet can dry, preventing condensation inside the station. The wooden paneling is bright, with a slightly yachting finish that brings a warm atmosphere to the smooth, uniform walls. “We will be welcoming artists on board,” says Clémentine Moulin, Tara’s expedition logistics manager, already imagining wall decorations. The kitchen and semi-circular lounge are bathed in light streaming through large, almost triangular double-glazed portholes.
The beds in the cabins are located under the curve of the hull. It takes just three or four steps to reach them. Above them is a small skylight, which will only be used in summer. In winter, when the sun has disappeared from the sky, day and night will be artificially recreated by alternating white and red light, as in submarines. The human body needs to feel these changes.
The Tara Ocean Foundation is working with the French Space Agency to develop protocols for monitoring the effects of this confined space on the human body. Thomas Pesquet, who is accustomed to long missions in space, says he will follow the station’s expeditions closely. He may even spend some time there. “In space, we fly over the Earth between 53° south and north latitude, but not beyond. We can’t see all those areas to the north and south, but we can see how fragile the atmosphere is,” he explained at the press conference. He added that in confined spaces, it is important to exercise to clear your mind, and wondered whether a rowing machine or treadmill would be provided.
Romain Troublé, director of the Tara Ocean Foundation, agrees, pointing out that “in winter, there is also a lot of snow to clear from the deck.” Symbols of well-being on this ship are the sauna and the kitchen. Two months’ worth of fresh provisions can be carried, and food for 14 months of autonomy. To ensure that nothing is missing, every gap will be filled.
Life aboard this station is comparable to that of Concordia in Antarctica or Dumont-d’Urville, which is why the French Polar Institute is involved in organizing the expeditions. It has shared its expertise in recruitment. It is a decades-long drift project. The ship is expected to enter and leave the ice every two years and repeat the journey. The first expedition, Polaris I, will be led by an experienced crew, including a doctor who has spent several winters on an island, at Concordia, and on the schooner Tara during its drift in the Arctic ice in 2007.
The laboratories are located on the main deck at the front of the ship. The workspace is built around a well that opens onto the water. Today, it is the harbor water, but this summer it will be the Arctic Ocean north of Svalbard. An advisory board of 50 researchers is responsible for the foundation’s scientific strategy. Atmosphere, ice, and ocean will be studied not only physically, but also biologically. Marcel Babin and Chris Bowler, for example, will work on the molecules of living organisms that influence cloud formation and the antifreeze substances in algae, which partly shape sea ice.
“We want the high seas to be studied not only for the nature of their underwater geology, but also to understand the changes that are taking place,” explains Romain Troublé.
‘A place that is neither for sale nor for purchase,’ says Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, who has included the project in France’s polar strategy, to which the state is the main contributor.
