Arctic use/reinforcing for ice/"expedition class"

It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and not as dangerous of a trip as you would think, there are about a dozen sailboats doing charters to Antarctica, most 3-4 trips a year and they have been doing it for years without any of them getting in serious trouble (though one did come back yesterday without the top half of her mast, but it was unrelated to being in high latitudes, just fell down in about 30 knots of wind near cape horn.)

The weather is actually not bad in the summer, in the week I was on the pennisula we had 4-5 days of sunny weather and temps just around freezing. We also had our share of sleet and snow, but not that bad overall.

I can see why people fall in love with the ice and keep going back year after year. I would like to go again someday on a boat of my own so I could spend a month or two there. Though my favorite place to sail so far was the channels of southern Chile.

 

Whatever the reason, they never went south, apparently. Maybe the design is tailored to, and requires cold water. In any event, there would likely be much more important work to do in the extensive Russian Arctic, whereas there is no pressing commercial need to satisfy in Antarctica. Just occurred to me that that class of vessel would be unlikely to get stuck, the way the smaller Russian icebreaker is.