Polarcus Nadia

Ship history

‘Polarcus Nadia’ is the first of totally six seismic research vessels constructed for Polarcus at Drydocks World - Dubai. The vessel is design project number U10321, yard number 66 and was delivered in December 2009.

The vessel´s first commission was to work off Liberia. The first survey was acquired with a 10-streamer seismic array, each streamer being 7,200 metres long and with 100 metres separation between streamers.

“My experience is that the most complete and most knowledgeable environment in seismology and the offshore industry is in Norway”, said director Peter Zickerman at Polarcus on the occasion of the delivery of the vessel. “The North Sea oil activity is conducted in harsh weather and under strict standards of health, environment and safety. These challenges have given both crews and suppliers of ships and equipment invaluable experience.”

“I’ve followed the development of the X-BOW® since the concept was launched and have always thought it interesting and an improvement on traditional ship designs. For a long time there was little innovation in ship design, but here came along something entirely new. When we started working on our project, we visited the Ulstein Group and met the design environment there, and we spoke with crew members and the management at Bourbon Offshore Norway, who have had good results with their X-BOW vessel. We were then convinced this would be a good design for us, particularly with regard to the environment. It is very important to us that the crew have good, safe working conditions, and we believe this design will be an important contribution towards that end,” said Zickerman.

2021: In April 2021, Shearwater GeoServices acquired all the six Polarcus vessels. The Polarcus Nadia has later changed name to 'SW Bell'.