Expedition in the Arctic Region - page 2
And so we are aboard the "Polarstern". What a boat! Looks like a floating hotel. What do you think about it: a cabin for two, a comfortable bed of standard size, a table, a chair and a divan bed, a small cupboard containing a small built-in fridge, several sockets and connexions for the intranet, two bookshelves, a small bathroom with a shower, two wide windows, and regulable air-conditioning everywhere. This boat is really marvellous: 8 decks (2 with nothing but engine rooms), a lift for three persons and a goods lift.
If you reckon with the length of the boat (118 m), the number of decks and connecting corridors between larboard and starboard, you understand how difficult it can be not to get lost in this labyrinth, in spite of the floor plans you find everywhere. The boat has been conceived to limit at most the pitching: she has an impressive tonnage (11300 ton in an empty state) and is equipped with an ingenious system of balancing and compartmentalizing. Since the Titanic, everyone knows the importance of such a system for a ship meant to navigate between the icebergs.
