The ''Marion Dufresne II'' is a

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

and supply vessel named in honour of the 18th-century French explorer

Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne (22 May 1724 – 12 June 1772) was a French privateer, East India captain and explorer. The expedition he led to find the hypothetical ''Terra Australis'' in 1771 made important geographic discoveries in the sout ...

launched in 1995 and having two main missions: logistic support for the French Austral Islands and oceanographic research. The ''Marion Dufresne II'' ( IMO 9050814) is chartered by the French TAAF on an annual basis from the French shipping line

CMA CGM CMA CGM S.A. is a French container transportation and shipping company. It is the world’s 3rd largest container shipping company, using 257 shipping routes between 420 ports in 160 countries. Its headquarters are in Marseille, France The name ...

(The French Line) and is maintained by the IPEV (Institut polaire françaisPaul-Émile Victor). The current ''Marion Dufresne II'' is the replacement for slightly smaller ''Marion Dufresne I'' that served the TAAF from 1973 to 1995. The ship was constructed by Ateliers et Chantiers du Havre of

Normandy, France Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

and delivered on 12 May 1995; it is registered out of the port of Marseille but its base of operations is the island of

La Réunion LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

. The ''Marion Dufresne'' was designed for the very severe weather conditions of the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

. She possesses exceptional

seakeeping Seakeeping ability or seaworthiness is a measure of how well-suited a watercraft is to conditions when underway. A ship or boat which has good seakeeping ability is said to be very seaworthy and is able to operate effectively even in high sea stat ...

behaviorallowing full performance in the very rough seas found there.

Mission

The ''Marion Dufresne'' is used to service the districts of the Crozet and

Kerguelen Islands The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large ...

, and the smaller islands of Amsterdam and St-Paul, delivering supplies, fuel, and personnel to the three permanently staffed bases there:

Alfred Faure Alfred-Faure or Port Alfred is a permanent French scientific station on Île de la Possession (Possession Island) of the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago in the South Indian Ocean. Research Station It is located at the eastern end of the island on ...

(Port Alfred),

Port-aux-Français Port-aux-Français is the main settlement of the Kerguelen Islands, and French Southern and Antarctic Lands, in the south Indian Ocean. Occupancy The settlement is located on the shore of the Gulf of Morbihan. About 45 residents spend the wi ...

, and

Martin-de-Viviès Martin-de-Viviès, or La Roche Godon, formerly Camp Heurtin, is a research station and the only settlement on the Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul islands of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in the southern Indian Ocean The Indian Oce ...

. With the additional capacity as a logistics vessel, the ''Marion Dufresne'', as a research vessel, is among the largest of the world fleet. Her accommodation options, freight handling, and endurance allow cruises and research campaigns of the most demanding sort. Due to an increasing scientific demand, in 1999 the French Ministry of Research reduced the ship time devoted to logistical operations to 120 days per year and allowed the IPEV to conduct research world-wide for the remaining 245 days a year. Therefore, the ship is no longer confined to the Indian Ocean and conducts research in all oceans. This has allowed for the development of integrated, multidisciplinary programs, for instance, spending several months in 1999 coring for paleo-climatic purposes in the North Atlantic.

Ship facilities

With a capacity for 110 passengers in 59 cabins, the ''Marion Dufresne'' allows large scientific parties to embark on multidisciplinary programs. There is a hospital with operating theatre; pharmacy, video/conference center; library; gym and a ship's store.

Propulsion

Diesel-Electric propulsion is provided by three Cegelec electric motorsone 750 kW bow thruster and two AC synchronous electric propulsion motors: 2,650 kW each manufactured by GEC Alsthom Moteurs driving two propeller shafts. Electric power to run the motors is generated by two 8-cylinder (8R32D) and one 6-cylinder (6R32D) diesel engines, manufactured by the Finnish company

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

Boats

The ship carries a complement of several smaller working boats on board. The largest is the container barge ''Gros Ventre'' ("Fat Belly"), named in honour of the fluyt ''Gros Ventre'' of the First voyage of Kerguelen; others include a small utility boat, a semi-rigid rubber raft, and a zodiac. Naturally the vessel also carries the required types of life boats.

Aircraft

The ''Marion Dufresne'' possesses a helicopter platform and may carry one of a series of helicopters to ferry provisions and personnel from ship to shore. These may include the

Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin The Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) AS365 Dauphin (''Dolphin''), also formerly known as the Aérospatiale SA 365 Dauphin 2, is a medium-weight multipurpose twin-engine helicopter produced by Airbus Helicopters. It was originally developed ...

, Eurocopter AS 350 Écureuil, and Aérospatiale Alouette II or III. These aircraft are leased from HeliLagon on Réunion.

Heavy lifting

The vessel possesses two fast cranes ( when coupled), one logistic/ oceanographic crane, and one service crane.

Navigation

The ship's complement of navigation equipment includes: * Three

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

navigation systems and SkyFix differential correction * Doppler speed log *

Gyro compass A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. The use of a gyroc ...

Time server Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to co ...

* Attitude control and navigation system * Ultra-Short Baseline (USBL) underwater acoustic positioning system * Dynamic positioning system (DPS)

Environment

The ship's systems include: * Central

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...

and acoustic

anemometer In meteorology, an anemometer () is a device that measures wind speed and direction. It is a common instrument used in weather stations. The earliest known description of an anemometer was by Italian architect and author Leon Battista Alberti ( ...

* Two distribution circuits of "clean" sea water to the laboratories

Information technology & communication

The vessel has a broad array of communication and computing technologies including: * Computer

workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, HP, IBM * Desktop computers: DOS/Windows & Mac * Printers and plotters * Software:

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation ...

Generic Mapping Tools Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) are an open-source collection of computer software tools for processing and displaying xy and xyz datasets, including rasterisation, filtering and other image processing operations, and various kinds of map projections ...

(GMT), Ifremer CARAIBES RT-PP sea floor mapping software * 200 port gigabit ethernet network/intranet and work area wifi * Server: VMWare server virtualization, renewed 2018 and 2019. * Data acquisition and archiving, 50TB capacity. * Batched email and data transmission: Inmarsat systems. * Phone:

Iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of ...

* Marine

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

transceiver

Science

Featuring modern facilities, it is operational in all fields of oceanography: marine geosciences,

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

, and the physics and chemistry of the oceans.

Facilities

There are 31 laboratories with total surface area, plus the possibility of additional lab containers on the bridges and helicopter platform.

Geophysics

The vessel possesses a full suite of geophysical equipment including multi-beam

bathymetry Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water de ...

and imagery and includes: * Three bathymetric sounders: :* Dual-frequency (3.5 and/or 12 kHz) sea bottom profiler coupled with

multibeam echosounder A multibeam echosounder (MBES) is a type of sonar that is used to map the seabed. It emits acoustic waves in a fan shape beneath its transceiver. The time it takes for the sound waves to reflect off the seabed and return to the receiver is used ...

(MBES) :* Analog

echo sounder Echo sounding or depth sounding is the use of sonar for ranging, normally to determine the depth of water (bathymetry). It involves transmitting acoustic waves into water and recording the time interval between emission and return of a pulse; ...

(3.5, 12 and 18 kHz) :* Monobeam echo sounder (3.5, 12, 18 and 34 kHz) * Marine

proton magnetometer A proton magnetometer, also known as a proton precession magnetometer (PPM), uses the principle of Earth's field nuclear magnetic resonance (EFNMR) to measure very small variations in the Earth's magnetic field, allowing ferrous objects on land ...

Gravimeter Gravimetry is the measurement of the strength of a gravitational field. Gravimetry may be used when either the magnitude of a gravitational field or the properties of matter responsible for its creation are of interest. Units of measurement Gr ...

* Two continuous thermosalinographs (TSGs) * Two

acoustic doppler current profiler An acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) is a hydroacoustic current meter similar to a sonar, used to measure water current velocities over a depth range using the Doppler effect of sound waves scattered back from particles within the water col ...

(ADCP) *

Conductivity, temperature, depth ''For information about the CTD-rosette equipment package as a whole, see: Rosette sampler'' A CTD or sonde is an oceanography instrument used to measure the electrical conductivity, temperature, and pressure of seawater (the D stands for "dept ...

(CTD) rosette/ carousel (24 bottles) * Two seismic compressors

Coring

The ''Marion Dufresne'' with its giant corer ''Calypso'', is one of the few ships to collect sediment cores up to in length. ''Calypso'' is a Kullenberg type round piston corer adjustable and long. Also on board is a CASQ square gravity corer ( long). Since 1995, a program involving 26 nations aims to collect and interpret paleoclimatic data from cores taken in all the world's oceans.

Integrated rear heavy sampling (SIAM)

Over the stern sampling equipment includes: * capstan, compatible cable aramid () * Three reels of cable, large diameter (up to ) * Two gantries 10/30 t long travel (back and side) * Three handling winches, cranes of 18 t 2 and t 3, winches, telescopic booms * Mobile platform equipped with trawl winches and large diameter reels * Various samplers and dredges

Eco-tourism

In addition to the usual complement of scientists, researchers, technicians and construction workers, in recent years the ''Marion Dufresne'' has also played host to an increasing number of

tourists Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

(up to 14 per trip) who book passage for a period lasting about 28 days. A passage includes guided tours of Crozet,

Kerguelen The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a archipelago, group of islands in the subantarctic, sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the ...

, and Amsterdam Islandswith opportunities to view the local wildlife. The ship's cabin appointments are simple but comfortable, and several forms of entertainment and exercise are available on board. Meals served on board are considered to be of excellent quality; the dining room can seat up to 58 at a time in two seatings.

Notable events

On 15 December 2008, the ship was involved in the rescue of Bernard Stamm, whose IMOCA Open 60 racing yacht ''Cheminées Poujoulat'' ran aground and sustained significant hull damage near the Kerguelen Islands during the 2008–2009 edition of the

Vendée Globe --> The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop round the world yacht race. The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, and since 1992 has taken place every four years. It is named after the Département of Vendée, in France, w ...

round the world, single-handed yacht race. On 14 November 2012, ''Marion Dufresne'' ran aground as she reached

Crozet Islands The Crozet Islands (french: Îles Crozet; or, officially, ''Archipel Crozet'') are a sub-Antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarcti ...

as part of third resupply campaign of the year. The incident resulted in a breach in the hull, flooding of two watertight compartments, and disabling of the

bow thruster Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...

. The crew managed to control the damages and safely returned the vessel off the island. The 110 passengers were evacuated by the on-board helicopter to the small station located on the island. After being assessed for seaworthiness, repairs were effected at the Elgin Brown & Hamer shipyard in

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

, South Africa. A similar accident occurred in 2005. On 7 December 2016, the ship and its crew rescued Kito de Pavant, a single-handed French sailor taking part in the 2016-2017 edition of the

. His

IMOCA 60 The IMOCA ("Open 60"), is a 60ft development class monohull sailing yacht administered by the International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA). The class pinnacle event are single or two person ocean races, such as the Route du Rhum and th ...

yacht had suffered significant damage to the

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

after a collision with a

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

approximately to the north of the

. In 2019 the ship surveyed the ocean floor near the island of

Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It is loc ...

, and the results showed the creation of a new underwater

seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...

that had not existed on maps created three years prior to the new survey.

References

External links

Institute Polair Français-Paul Emile Victor

Marion Dufresne II, Oceanographic Research Vessel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marion Dufresne Ships of France Ships built in France Ships of CMA CGM French Southern and Antarctic Lands 1994 ships Research vessels of France