Dutch lab en route to Antarctica

RNW, 16 January 2012

A planned Dutch research facility in Antarctica is one step closer to completion.

Three mobile labs have been loaded on lorries and are en route to the UK port of Southampton. From there they will travel to Antarctica by ship. A fourth lab is to be sent at a later date.

The three labs will form part of a Dutch research station, the first such facility in Antarctica ever.

Deputy Science Minister Halbe Zijlstra sealed the labs before they were loaded onto lorries. He also announced the names of the four labs: Geloof (Faith), Hoop (Hope), Liefde (Love) and Blijde Boodschap (Glad Tidings), after the four ships which left Rotterdam in 1598 to search for a trade route with Asia via the southern tip of South America.

During the journey, the Blijde Boodschap was blown far off course in a storm and its captain, Dirck Gerritsz, spotted a “very mountainous land, covered in snow, like the land of Norway”. He was probably the first person ever to lay eyes on Antarctica.

During the send-off for the mobile labs, Mr Zijlstra also announced that a lab at Rothera Point on Aidelaide Island will be named Gerritsz, after the Dutch captain.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research says the three labs are expected to arrive in late March. The first researchers will leave for Antarctica in autumn. The labs will be manned by five scientists who will conduct research into the effects of the melting of the ice caps.

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