HESPERIDES (A33)

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Built as a polar research vessel under yard No 202 by Astrilleros Bazán, Cartagena, Spain for the Spanish Government (Ministry of Education and Science.)
July 1988 ordered.
14 November 1988 keel laid down.
12 March 1990 launched under the name MAR ANTARTICO.
Displacement 1,983 ton standard, 2,682 ton full load, dim. 82.5 x 14.3 x 7.35m., draught 4.42m. Length bpp.76.8m.
Powered by two MAN-Bazan diesel engines, 1,904 hp. each, twin shafts, variable pitch propellers, speed 15 knots.
Has bow and stern thruster.
Ice strengthened.
Accommodation for 55 crew and 30 scientists.
In ice with a thickness of 0.5 metres, she still can make a speed of 5 knots.
Range by a speed of 12 knots, 12,000 mile.
Soon after launching her name was altered in HESPERIDES (A33)
16 May 1991 commissioned, homeport Cartagena. Managed by the Spanish Navy.

She was the first of the Bazan B204 class.
11 Laboratories spread over 345 sq.m, located on the main deck and below..
Her main task is to service the Spanish polar base on Livingstone Island in the Antarctic, but she makes also regular research voyages.
Between 2003 and 2004 she renovated and modernized.

Spain issued in 2011 one stamp which depicts this vessel, below is given what the Spanish Post was given by this issues. http://www.correos.es/comun/filatelia/2 ... lo=5012011
This issue reflects the importance and concern of society in Oceanography, the science devoted to the study of the seas, its phenomena, the marine flora and fauna, and to biodiversity – the number of plant and animal species of the oceans. For this reason, the UN declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity and the UPU (Universal Postal Union) urged the postal administrations to issue a commemorative stamp.
The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (Higher Council for Scientific Research) has launched the Malaspina 2010 expedition, an interdisciplinary project of global dimensions meeting two important needs “assessing the impact of global change on the ocean and exploring the still little-known ecosystem of the ocean’s depth". For nine long months the oceanographic research ships Hesperides, belonging to the Spanish Navy, and the Sarmiento de Gamboa, operated by the CSIC, will sail around the world. The project involves over 400 experts and researchers from 19 Spanish institutions, such as the Spanish Royal Astronomical Observatory of the Navy, the Navy Museum, and the Navy Hydrographical Institute, which have already conducted tests in 350 oceanographic stations to depths of up to 5,000 meters and collected thousands of samples of air, water and plankton.
The expedition is named after Alejandro Malaspina, a Spanish sailor of Italian origin famous for conducting the first Spanish circumnavigatory expedition of a scientific nature in the late eighteenth century.
Alejandro Malaspina (1754 Pontremoli - Mulazzo 1809) joined the Spanish Royal Navy in 1774 and participated in battles against the British. In 1780 he was appointed lieutenant and began conducting scientific expeditions. With his fellow marines, J. Bustamante y Guerra, he carried out between 1789 and 1794 the famous Malaspina expedition of a scientific and political nature with naturalists, scientists, and cartographers on board who gathered data, chartered territories, registered fauna, and explored the sea. On his return to Spain, he submitted a report which made critical comments on the Spanish colonies.
The stamp has been designed by Estudio Jesús Sánchez depicting the Hespérides and its reflection on the water featuring the Corbeta Atrevida, the original vessel of the first expedition commanded by Malaspina. The glass jar symbolizes the scientific nature of this expedition.

2022 In service.


Spain 2011 0.50 Euro sg?, scott?.
Spain 2022 4.60 Euro sgMS?, Scott? (more info on this stamp is given at: viewtopic.php?t=18200
She is also on a Bulgaria label on MS of 2002.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIO_Hesperides