The Polarcus Naila roams the ocean like a restless ghost, drifting slowly back and forth, day and night, over the same lonely patch of sea. And then, suddenly, she is gone; vanished again – off to haunt some other waters, in some other part of the world. She is a ship that never stops moving, thanks to a crew that never falters.

The North Sea. Fog, thick and white, hangs over the water and wraps around the bridge of the Polarcus Naila. This is the ship’s first seismic project since leaving dry dock in Amsterdam with a brand new Twin Fin propulsion system, the first of its kind in the world. It was a fast retrofit – just forty-five days – but even so, the decision to take the vessel out of the water for that relatively short length of time was not made lightly.

Downtime is not an option

It was a matter of necessity. With operating costs of $200,000 per day, downtime is not an option for this ship – eighty-five percent of her lifetime will be spent at sea – and in a perfect world, she would never stop moving. It is an investment Polarcus is counting on making back in less than three years, through efficiency gains like reduced fuel consumption and improved reliability.

Each day the crew must work to safeguard their ship’s operations, or risk tarnishing Polarcus’s hard-won reputation as one of the best seismic operators in the business. And in this industry, reputation is everything.