page_title: History of research ships
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of research ships / The race to the poles / 19th century
context_page_description: The research ship had origins in the early voyages of exploration. By the time of James Cook's Endeavour, the essentials of what today we would call a research ship are clearly apparent. In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. The Endeavour was a sturdy boat, well designed and equipped for the ordeals she would face, and fitted out with facilities for her research personnel, Joseph Banks. And, as is common with contemporary research vessels, Endeavour carried out more than one kind of research, including comprehensive hydrographic survey work.
  Some other notable early research vessels were HMS Beagle, RV Calypso, HMS Challenger, and the Endurance and Terra Nova.
context_section_description: At the end of the 19th century there was intense international interest in exploring the North and South Poles. The search operations for the lost Franklin expedition were barely forgotten as Russia, Great Britain, Germany and Sweden set new scientific tasks for the Arctic Ocean. In 1868, the Swedish ship Sofia carried out temperature measurements and oceanographic observation in the sea area around Svalbard. During this year the Greenland, built in Norway, operated in the same area under the German command of Carl Koldeway. In 1868 to 1869, the ship owner A. Rosenthal gave scientists the opportunity to come aboard on his whaling trips and by 1869, the ship Germania, which was escorted by the Hansa and led the Second German North Polar Expedition, was built. The Germania returned safely from the expedition and was used later for further research. The Hansa, in contrast, was crushed by the ice and sunk. In 1874, the Austrian-Hungarian Tegetthoff as well as the American schooner Polaris under the command of Captain Hull met the same fate.
  The Royal Navy ships Alert and Discovery of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-76 were more successful. In 1875 they left Portsmouth in order to cross the Arctic Ocean and reach as close as possible to the pole. Although they did not reach the pole itself they brought plenty of precious observations back. During these years, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld's discovery of the Northeast Passage and first circumnavigation of Eurasia during the Vega expedition outstood all other expeditions.
  Fridtjof Nansen's famous Fram took deep-sea soundings and carried out hydrographical, meteorological and magnetic surveys throughout the polar basin. In 1884, a press item stating that the American Jeanette had sunk near the Siberian coast three years before inspired Fridtjof Nansen. The Captain of this ship, lieutenant George Washington de Long, assumed that currents existed floating ships deep into the polar ice.
  Three years after the loss of the Jeanette and de Long's death, some items of equipment and few sou'wester pants were found on the southwestern Greenland coast. When Nansen heard about that there was only one possible explanation for him: These pieces had drifted surrounded by ice via the polar basin and along the East coast of Greenland until they ended up in Julianehab. The driftwood used by the Inuit was even more enlightening for Nansen. It could only derive from the areas of the Siberian rivers that flowed into the Arctic Ocean. This hazarded a guess that there was a current which floated from somewhere between the pole and Franz Josef Land through the Arctic Ocean to the East coast of Greenland. After that, Nansen planned to freeze a ship into ice and to let it float. Unlike other explorers, Nansen supposed that a well-constructed ship would take him to the North Pole safely. As a scientist, he wanted to reach the Pole as well as to reconnoiter the sea area.
  The success of the expedition depended on the ship's construction, especially its resistance against ice pressure. Indeed, neither the Fram nor Nansen, who impatiently left his ship and ventured towards the pole on foot, achieved their goal but Nansen's theory about the currents was proved correct.
  While Nansen was returning from the ice of the Arctic Ocean, his countryman Roald Amundsen set off to the Antarctic. Aboard the Belgica Amundsen accompanied the Belgian Antarctic Expedition as a steersman. For this adventure Adrien de Gerlache purchased the whale catcher Patria for 70,000 francs, overhauled the engine, arranged additional cabins, installed a laboratory and renamed the ship Belgica. Between 1887 and 1899, biological and physical observations were carried out to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula and to the south of Peter I Island. The Belgica was the first ship that overwintered in the Antarctic. An international research team was aboard; later at the evaluation over 80 scientists participated. In 1895 Georg Neumayer, director of the Hamburg naval observatory, launched the slogan "off to the South Pole" at the sixth internationa
caption: Late 18th-century French project for modification of a frigate for polar exploration. The ram-looking device is supposed to protect the ship from the pressure of the ice.
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