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Monday, March 24 was an important milestone for the National Geographic Explorer project. On that day the ship went on drydock at Astican Shipyard in Las Palmas.

One of the most important jobs to be done now that the ship is high and dry is the reinforcement of the ice belt. This will involve cropping out steel almost the entire length of the ship in a band above and below the waterline and replacing it with thicker steel and additional framing so that the ship will meet the standards of an Ice Class 1A hull. Based on his many years of operating in the ice, Captain Leif Skog has called for a design that will even exceed Ice Class 1A standards in certain areas.

National Geographic Explorer will definitely be well prepared for her future encounters with the ice of Antarctica and the Arctic.

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