Miami Yacht Watch: Tour the icebreaking Arctic Sunrise at Museum Park

Miami is a common host for extravagant yachts and large vessels at all times of the year. Track these magnificent ships and their outlandish toys with Miami Yacht Watch, which typically runs weekly on Curbed Miami.

Fresh off last week’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, which featured some spectacular superyachts, there’s a new massive vessel in town albeit without the luxury toys.

The Arctic Sunrise, Greenpeace’s icebreaking research ship, is docked in downtown Miami at Museum Park. Built in 1975, the 166-footer has traveled all over the world, from Antarctica to the Amazon.

In 1997, she became the “first ship to circumnavigate James Ross Island in the Antarctic,” per Greenpeace’s website, after a 200-meter-thick ice shelf collapsed. Arctic Sunrise was originally a sealing ship until Greenpeace purchased it in the mid 1990s. Since, the vessel been involved in anti-whaling missions, anti-drilling protests, and plenty of controversy.

In 2013, Russian authorities captured the Dutch-flagged vessel after a good chunk of its crew attempted to scale a Russian oil rig following a protest against drilling in the Barents Sea. Details are from The Independent Barents Observer:

An international tribunal formed under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has ruled that Russia will have to pay the Netherlands €5.4 million in damages over the 2013 seizing of Greenpeace’s vessel Arctic Sunrise and its crew following the protest against GazpromNeft’s Prirazlomnoye drilling in the eastern Barents Sea.

Russia breached its obligations under the Convention by boarding, investigating, inspecting arresting, detaining, and seizing the Arctic Sunrise, a vessel flying the Dutch flag, without the prior consent of the Netherlands, and by arresting, detaining and initiating judicial proceedings against the thirty persons on board that vessel, the court ruling reads.

Russian Coast Guard soldiers boarded and took over the vessel in September 2013 and sailed it to Murmansk where it was held in port for nine months. The 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists on board spent two months in prison, first in Murmansk and later in St. Petersburg before being released by an amnesty.

Arctic Sunrise is available for tours this weekend from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.