Same yard, same years
Built alongside at Ulstein Verft
No ship class is recorded for this vessel, so these are not asserted to be sister ships — they are contemporaries from the same builder, shown because that is what the data supports.
Synchronizing…
A public reference property of Baalvion
Open data · every figure carries its source
Largest in this registry
#44,034
of 84,014 with a recorded tonnage
Largest research / survey
#103
of 483 of this type with a recorded tonnage
Largest in its fleet
#15
of 46 in this fleet with a recorded tonnage
In brief
HMS Endurance was an icebreaker that served as the Royal Navy ice patrol ship between 1991 and 2008. Built in Norway as MV Polar Circle, she was chartered by the Royal Navy in 1991 as HMS Polar Circle, before being purchased outright and renamed HMS Endurance in 1992 as a replacement for the previous HMS Endurance whose hull had been weakened by striking an iceberg.
Endurance was a class 1 icebreaker. Her two Bergen BRG8 diesel engines produced over 8000 shaft horsepower enabling her to travel through ice up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) thick at 3 knots (5.6 km/h). Her propulsion system used a computer-controlled variable-pitch propeller and stern and bow thrusters. She carried two ice-modified Lynx helicopters which were instrumental in the making of the BBC Documentary Series Planet Earth in 2006.
The ship was laid up in Portsmouth from 2009 to 2016, following serious damage caused by flooding following an error during routine maintenance on a sea suction strainer. In October 2013 it was reported that she would be scrapped; in July 2015 the vessel was offered for sale for further use or recycling and left Portsmouth under tow to the Leyal ship recycling facility in Turkey on 1 June 2016.
Vessel particulars
Every value is as recorded in the source. Blanks are values the source does not hold — none is estimated from a sister ship or a class average.
Identification
Construction
Measurements
In context
Every figure in this section is a count, a rank or a percentile over vessels actually held in this registry — not over the world fleet, which is larger. Nothing here is estimated.
At 5,129 gross tons, HMS Endurance is the 44,034th largest of the 84,014 vessels in this registry that report a tonnage. The median across that set is 5,994 GT. The largest measures 499,167 GT.
Among the 612 research / surveys held here, it ranks 103rd by tonnage — larger than 79% of that group. Their median tonnage is 2,180 GT, and the largest tenth begin at 9,452 GT. The flag most often flown by this group is United States (90 ships). The yard that appears most often against it is Wärtsilä, with 36 hulls on record.
Norway is the country of registry for 3,032 vessels in this directory, of which HMS Endurance is the 938th largest by tonnage. The most common class under that flag is vessels this registry holds no type classification for (2,126 ships), and the median vessel measures 3,102 GT. Browse every ship flagged Norway.
Narrowing to both dimensions at once, this registry holds 29 research / surveys flying the Norway flag, of which 8 are larger by tonnage.
HMS Endurance was built in 1990, making it 36 years old. It is one of 1,306 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 2,025 GT; within it this ship is the 398th largest. Across the whole of the 1990s the registry holds 12,006 vessels, median 4,956 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.
The registry attributes 105 vessels to Ulstein Verft, with a median tonnage of 4,157 GT, delivered between 1959 and 2021. See the rest of that yard’s output.
At 91.0 m overall, HMS Endurance is 20.0 m longer than the 71.0 m median for research / surveys on record, with a beam of 17.9 m and a draft of 8.5 m.
IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 8901561 this registry holds 50 other vessels, whose median build year is 1990 and which range from 1989 to 1993. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 1990.
Its IMO number, 8901561, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 8×7 + 9×6 + 0×5 + 1×4 + 5×3 + 6×2 = 141 — and the last digit of that total, 1, must equal the seventh digit, 1. It does, so this number is well formed.
Nearest by tonnage among research / surveys
| Ship | Built | Gross tonnage |
|---|---|---|
| «Oceanxplorer 1» | 2010 | 5,399 |
| Magadan | 1982 | 5,342 |
| Western Monarch | 1991 | 5,222 |
| HMS Endurance (this ship) | 1990 | 5,129 |
| CCGS John Cabot | 1965 | 5,097 |
| Explorer II | — | 5,073 |
| Boa Galatea |
Record
Events recorded against this vessel in the source, with the dates the source gives. An event with no date is listed last rather than assigned one.
Same yard, same years
No ship class is recorded for this vessel, so these are not asserted to be sister ships — they are contemporaries from the same builder, shown because that is what the data supports.
Same fleet
Provenance
Vessel recordWikidata, released under CC0, keyed on this ship’s IMO number.
Written summaryQuoted from HMS Endurance (A171) on English Wikipedia, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.
PhotographNo freely licensed photograph of this vessel is held, so none is shown.
| 2009 |
| 5,061 |
