After more than 150 Antarctic trips and three decades of service, Australia's giant orange icebreaker has left its Hobart home for the last time.
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Affectionately known as the orange roughy, the Aurora Australis was retired from the nation's Antarctic program earlier this year.
It's next stop will be a shipyard in Dubai, where it will be refurbished and either leased or sold.
At 9 am on Saturday, dozens of people gathered at the dock to say a final goodbye to the ship, with many saying the vessel had become a focal part of the city and of Tasmania.
Sean Lawrence, a seaman for 14 years on the vessel, said on Friday he was planning to raise a beer from his house south of Hobart as he watched the ship leave the River Derwent.
"You form a bond when you're isolated and working in extreme conditions," he said.
"To suddenly have that leaving your life, it leaves a bit of a hole."
Mr Lawrence, now in his 60s, was aboard the Aurora Australis when it ran aground near Mawson Station in Antarctica during a blizzard in 2016.
It was stuck for several days after a mooring line came undone.
"(It was) extreme conditions but we saw the way people stepped up to the mark and got on with the job," Mr Lawrence said.
The ship, built in Newcastle and launched in September 1989, undertook its maiden voyage to Heard Island in 1990.
It has since ferried researchers, crucial food and fuel supplies to the frozen continent and helped rescue crews of stricken counterparts.
In December 2013, it transported 52 people from MV Akademik Shokalskiy to safety after the Russian ship became stranded in thick ice.
Mr Lawrence said the edgy moments were balanced with once-in-a-lifetime views.
"On a fine day when you're going through the ice fields and passing iceberg after iceberg it is absolutely beautiful," he said.
"Once you get down to the ice, the seas are very still."
The Aurora Australis will be replaced by the $529 million RSV Nuyina, named after a Tasmanian Aboriginal word for southern lights.
The ship, currently undergoing sea trials in Europe, is expected to be in Hobart in the middle of 2021.
It will carry up to 117 expeditioners, 1200 tonnes of cargo and 1.9 million litres of fuel, substantially more than the Aurora Australis which completed its last Antarctic supply trip in March.
"She's much more than a ship, she's been a lifeline, she's been a home, she's been a symbol that really captures that whole Antarctic spirit," Australian Antarctic Division Director Kim Ellis said at the time.
Australian Associated Press
