„Polar­sys­sel“: A new ship for the Sys­sel­man­nen

After a delay of near­ly four months, the Sysselmannen´s new ship Polar­sys­sel could be named and offi­ci­al­ly taken into ser­vice on Satur­day, Sep­tem­ber 20th. The cerem­o­ny was held at the ‘Gam­mel­ka­ia’ in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the pre­sence of the Nor­we­gi­an Minis­ter of Jus­ti­ce Anders Amund­sen.

The Polar­sys­sel replaces the Nord­sys­sel which in Sep­tem­ber last year, after it´s ele­venth sea­son in ser­vice for the Sys­sel­man­nen, left Spits­ber­gen for the last time. To com­pen­sa­te the new ship´s delay the begin­ning of this year´s sea­son, start­ing in May, was run by a ship of the Ice­lan­dic coast­guard cal­led Tyr.

Unli­ke for­mer ships of the Sys­sel­man­nen, the new Polar­sys­sel was cus­tom-built for ser­vice in Spits­ber­gen and is equip­ped for the spe­cial requi­re­ments of the Sys­sel­man­nen. The vessel´s main tasks will be in the fields of res­cue ope­ra­ti­ons, envi­ron­men­tal moni­to­ring and the pre­ven­ti­on of oil pol­lu­ti­on.

The Polar­sys­sel is equip­ped with a heli­c­op­ter deck, a winch to tow other ves­sels, infrared and optic came­ras to find per­sons or lea­king oil, water can­nons to fight fire, a medi­cal room, two work-boats which can be laun­ched quick­ly and the faci­li­ties for an exter­nal power sup­p­ly to save fuel when the ship lies at the pier in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. With the Polar­sys­sel a ship with the ice class 1B was cho­sen, dif­fe­ring from its ante­ces­sor ‘Nord­sys­sel’ which had the hig­hest ice class 1A Super. The Polar­sys­sel has a crew of 9 per­sons, cabin space for 21 pas­sen­gers and a capa­ci­ty for 35 day-pas­sen­gers.

The hull was built in Tur­key and the ship was then moun­ted and equip­ped in the Havyard shi­py­ard in the Nor­we­gi­an town Leir­vik. She is lea­sed out to the Sys­sel­man­nen by the ship­ping com­pa­ny Remøy Manage­ment. Owner of the ves­sel is the Ice­lan­dic com­pa­ny Faf­nir Off­shore. The con­tract for using the Polar­sys­sel ends in 2020 for the time being. After this, the Sys­sel­man­nen has the opti­on to renew it until 2024. The cos­ts for using the ship will be 329 mil­li­on Nor­we­gi­an Kro­ner in the first ten years. Though, each sea­son the Polar­sys­sel will only stay in Spits­ber­gen for six months, from May to Novem­ber. During win­ter time it will ser­ve on other occa­si­ons for exam­p­le as a sup­p­ly ves­sel for the off­shore oil indus­try.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten, Sys­sel­man­nen

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