Horyzont II
Designs for a vessel to replace the instrument ships Horyzont and Zenit as they approached the end of their service were put together at the Higher Maritime School in 1993-1996. The requirements for a new ship were drawn up by Captain Zbigniew Burciu. The new ship would need to meet the training requirements of both the then Gdynia and Szczecin Maritime Academies, whilst representing an attractive option for charter research expeditions carried out by the Maritime Institute. Captain Burciu and the then Rector of the Higher Maritime School, Professor Józef Lisowski, convinced the Ministry that the more economical option of a single ship that could meet all of these requirements was the way forward. The idea was forced to compete with a second design for a training ship drawn up at the Maritime School in Szczecin, which, having gained the approval of the Ministry, was also offered to be built for Gdynia. Unlike the design from Gdynia, which had capabilities suitable for research expeditions, even in the polar regions, the Szczecin ship had limited navigation capabilities.
In the end, the benefits to be had with a more universal ship led to the ministry accepting the Gdynia project. A key factor was the possibility of reducing the cost of the investment by adapting an existing unfinished hull.
After the collapse of the ship-building market in the East, many unfinished vessels at various stages of construction could be acquired. A suitable hull was found at the Wisła shipbuilding yard - a sailing ship adapted for navigation in icy waters known as Polarex.
The Polarex was initially developed as a specialist ship for cyclical expeditions to the poles to supply research stations. The vessel was designed by Dariusz Bogucki, a ship designer and an outstanding polar navigator. Initial plans for the ship were for it to undertake paid research station supply, research, and tourism expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic during 9 months of the year. The remainder of the year, it would be involved in the education of young people at sea.
It was believed that following adaptation and extension, the existing Polarex hull would be suitable to meet all the assumed requirements of the Gdynia project; namely the seafarer training of students, the supply of polar research stations and involvement in research projects.
In 1999, the Rector of the Higher Maritime School, Professor Piotr Przybyłowski, signed an agreement for the purchase of the hull. The project for the ship was contracted to the Remontowa Shipyard in Gdańsk.
A concept for the optimal use of the new ship was also developed, including charters for external institutions. In addition to essential expeditions to Spitsbergen, regular expeditions to the Polish Polar Station were previously carried out by the training ship Jan Turlejski, the new ship would operate in the Antarctic and cooperate with the Interocean metal organisation in the Pacific.
The construction of the vessel was financed by the Ministry for Transport and the Maritime Economy, the Committee for Scientific Research, sponsors, and funds from the sale of bricks. The redeveloped ship first took to the water as the Horyzont II in 1999. The flag was raised on board the vessel for the first time on 28 April 2000.
Captained by Julian Witkowski, the ship set off on its first training voyage around the Baltic on 9 May 2000 and at the end of April it headed to Spitsbergen for the first time. Following its return to Gdynia and a change of captain - Captain Matulewski, the ship's 1st officer, replaced the retiring Julian Witkowski, the new ship was presented at EXPO 2000 in Wilhelmshaven. In September of the same year, Horyzont II set sail on its longest voyage yet - with supplies for the Polish research station on King George Island - one of the South Shetland islands in the Antarctic. During the next three months, the vessel covered a total of 18,698 nautical miles, calling at South American ports in Las Palmas, Santos and Punta Arenas. This pioneering voyage to the southern hemisphere showed the ship was too more suited to covering shorter distances.
During the next few years, the ideal exploitation model for the ship was worked out. It was decided that the ship would be used for training voyages during eight months of the year. This would include seagoing service and radar training for students of Gdynia Maritime Academy and middle school pupils during short voyages around the Baltic and a 3-4 week expedition to the Arctic as part of the Academy's longstanding cooperation with the Geophysics Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Joining scientists from the Polish Academy of Sciences on these trips were 20 students from the AMG's Faculty of Electrical Engineering as part of their seagoing service. The ship also transports supplies for the Polish research station, including fuel, food, other essential materials and research equipment.
Horyzont II also takes part in international research projects. These are often pioneering expeditions - to the lesser-known regions of the Svalbard Archipelago, as well as participation in international scientific field workshops. Spitsbergen is a unique, extremely important natural laboratory - research and measurements carried out here allow us to predict climate change trends in our hemisphere, as well as to identify seismic, natural, and oceanological processes. Horyzont II is a permanent integral part of the Polish presence in the Arctic.
The operation, maintenance and ongoing modernization of the ship is overseen by the Ship Management and Seagoing Service Department at GMU. -
During the years 2000 – 2014, Horyzont II completed 242 training voyages, including 34 to Spitsbergen and 1 to the Antarctic, covering almost 210,000 nautical miles and training around 3600 students.
The ship continued to host training in vessel manoeuvring and radar, as well as expeditions to Spitsbergen with scientists from the Geophysics Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
In 2017, Horyzont II took part in a pilot cruise as part of the JOHANN project (Joint Development of Small Cruise Ship Tourism Heritage Products in the Southern Baltic Sea Region). Gdynia Maritime University (Gdynia Maritime Academy) was one of the project's partners. As part of the project, the ship visited the ports in Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Sassnitz, Szczecin, Karlskrona, and Kalmar. During the voyage, students and staff from the University, in collaboration with specialists from the partner ports, carried out a SWOT analysis of all places visited. A video documenting the voyage can be found here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLHfct-D3cA)
At the end of 2020, for the first time, future officers of the Polish Navy underwent seagoing service on board the Horyzont II. As with all voyages at this time, the 3-week training took place in the sanitary conditions enforced during the Covid-19 pandemic.