Chile: A small flotilla for the Antarctic

At the beginning of July, the handover and commissioning ceremony for the first icebreaker designed and built in South America, the "Almirante Viel" (111 metres, 13,000 tonnes), took place in Talcahuano/Concepcion, halfway along Chile's almost 6,500-kilometre coastline. Together with the patrol vessel "Fuentealba" (OPV80 - Fassmer design) and the tugboat "Lientur", which arrived in the last decade, the newbuild forms the Chilean triumvirate for the nation's increased involvement on the opposite coast of the 7th continent, the Antarctic.