On Thursday 17th September 2020, the 2014 built research vessel SONNE was photographed from the air by MALTA SHIP PHOTOS while engaged in Marine Scientific Research offshore Gozo.

In May 2011 an order worth €124.4 million for a new research ship to replace the older research ship SONNE (Built in 1969 originally a stern trawler) was placed by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (90%) together with the coastal states Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Bremen and Hamburg (10%). She was built in Germany by Meyer Werft at Papenburg christened in July 2014 and handed over in November 2014.





SONNE is a multipurpose working platform for marine and related disciplines: physical and biological oceanography, marine geology, marine and atmospheric chemistry, marine geophysics and meteorology. She is owned by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and homeported at Wilhelmshaven (DEU Flag).




She is equipped to cover a wide spectrum of ocean research. An A-frame crane at the stern has a lifting capacity of 30 t. This can be used for deploying submersibles and other heavy equipment. Four cranes with a lifting capacity of 10 t and three small cranes (2 x 2 t and 1 x 0.5 t) allow the transport of research material across the ship. A winch enables deploying devices to the ocean floor to 12,000 m of water depth.




On Friday 14th August, 2020 Transport Malta issued Notice to Mariners as per below –




Watermarked Photos are by Capt. Lawrence Dalli otherwise stated. NO PHOTOS can be used or manipulated without our permission. © All rights reserved. Malta Ship Photos & Action Photos – www.maltashipphotos.com

Published – Sunday 11th April, 2021.