Palmer Station - Station Supply and Transport

Station Supply and Transport

Palmer Station is re-supplied by the R/V Laurence M. Gould, a ship with an ice-strengthened hull that makes routine science research cruises around the peninsula. The R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, the United States Antarctic Program's other research vessel, has also made port calls to Palmer Station—Hero Inlet, where the pier is located, is too shallow for the Palmer to dock at the station, though. Both ships are staffed and leased to the USAP by Edison-Chouest Offshore.

Hero inlet is named for the R/V Hero, a 125-foot wooden trawler-type vessel built to conduct research and supply Palmer Station from ports in Argentina and Chile. The Hero was owned by the National Science Foundation and built in 1968 by the Harvey Gamage shipyard in Maine. Palmer Station is located on Gamage Point, named for the shipbuilder.

After years of service, the Hero was retired in 1984 and replaced by the R/V Polar Duke, a larger and more modern ice-strengthened vessel under charter from Rieber Shipping, based in Bergen, Norway. The Duke was replaced by the R/V Laurence M. Gould in 1997.

Additionally, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the United States Coast Guard icebreakers Polar Star and Polar Sea alternated assisting in Palmer Station resupply and retrograde.

There is no routine air access to Palmer. Over the years, small ski-equipped aircraft have occasionally landed on the glacier to the east of the station.

USAP participants travel aboard the Laurence M. Gould from Punta Arenas, Chile. The course follows the Straits of Magellan to the east, then south along the coast of Argentina, past Cape Horn, then directly south across the Drake Passage and on to Anvers Island. The entire journey usually takes four days; however, sea ice and storms can slow the journey down.