Sat, 1 Feb 1997
Since Naomi expressed interest, I'll describe the ship some more. It's -- errr, big. It took me 85 paces and a full minute to walk from one end of the maindeck to the other -- that's probably 300 feet, in a not-quite-straight line. There are 22 crew and 20 scientists: the scientists are generally highly educated and a bit geeky, while the crew are rough sailorly types. The two groups interact in really interesting ways, as you might imagine, and there's a strong dichotomy.
There are four livable decks. The first platform (belowdecks) holds science and crew staterooms, an exercise room, a small lab and a laundry. The main deck has a large deck aft for launching and recovering equipment, deck space for two or three cargo containers, another deck area on the starboard side for launching the CTD, two enclosed hangars for the fantail and CTD deck areas, a main lab which occupies half the length of the port side of the ship (and which has about 20 computers in it), an analytical lab (currently being used by the meteorologists -- they've got five more computers), a "wet lab" adjoining the CTD hangar, a messroom which seats 30, a galley, a lounge and some crew quarters. The 01 deck (above maindeck) has the foredeck, a place to store two more cargo containers, two cargo cranes and a CTD winch and the "doghouses" they're controlled from, a medium-sized lab (with five more computers: I'm typing at one now), and a large library. The 02 deck contains staterooms for the captain and the chief scientist, and a chart room. The 03 deck contains the bridge. I'm not mentioning engineering spaces here, 'cause I don't know much about them.
Much more information and lots of pictures and diagrams of the Knorr can be found on its website.
As the Knorr sailed, ice built up on the bow of the ship due to seawater constantly freezing onto the deck, becoming 6 inches thick in places. On rare good-weather days, the crew pounded the ice off the deck with wooden mallets. Without this preventive action, the ship would have been at risk of becoming top-heavy and capsizing.
Photo credits: Bob Pickart
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