Icebreaker Leaves Australia after 150 Antarctica Trips

The giant orange icebreaker Aurora Australis left Australia for the last time on Saturday after more than 150 trips to Antarctica. Next stop: a shipyard in Dubai, where it will be renovated and either leased or sold.

Earlier this year the Australian Antarctic Division announced that the Aurora Australis would be replaced by a larger ship after 30 years of sailing to the frozen continent for research and support of the Australian bases in Antarctica, reports AP.

The 95-meter (312-foot) Aurora Australis was designed in Newcastle, north of Sydney, and was launched in September 1989. It embarked on its maiden voyage to Heard Island, an external Australian territory in Antarctica, in 1990.

It has since ferried researchers, crucial food and fuel supplies, and been involved in several rescues.

Sean Lawrence, a seaman for 14 years on the vessel, planned to toast the icebreaker with a beer from his house south of Hobart as he watched it leave the River Derwent.

“You form a bond when you’re isolated and working in extreme conditions,” he said. “To suddenly have that leaving your life, it leaves a bit of a hole.”

Lawrence was aboard the Aurora Australis when it ran aground near Mawson Station in Antarctica during a blizzard in 2016. It was stuck for several days after a mooring line came undone.

“(It was) extreme conditions but we saw the way people stepped up to the mark and got on with the job,” Lawrence said.

In December 2013, 52 people were transported from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy to safety after the Russian ship had been trapped in thick ice.

At six o'clock. On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered at the dock to say a final farewell to the ship, many of whom said the ship had become the focal point of the city and the island state.

The Aurora Australis will be replaced by the $398 million RSV Nuyina, named after the Tasmanian Aboriginal word for Southern light.

The new ship, which is currently undergoing sea trials in Europe after some construction delays, is scheduled to be in Hobart by the middle of next year.

It will hold up to 117 crew members and passengers, 1,200 metric tons of cargo and nearly 2 million liters (500,000 gallons) of fuel, considerably more than the Aurora Australis, which completed its last Antarctic supply trip in March.