"Archangelgracht" is a Container ship operated by the Dutch shipping company Spliethoff as part of their world wide fleet of "gracht" vessels. The name "gracht" meaning "canal" in Dutch.

"Archangelgracht" was built in 1990 and has a cubic capacity of 525,000 cbft. The vessel has 3 cranes capable of lifting 40 metric tons each. The vessel has a A-1 ice strengthened hull mainly used for Baltic Sea work.  In February, 2001 she was contracted by the United States National Science Foundation to act as their second Antarctic supply vessel of the season taking containerised and other cargo from Lyttelton to McMurdo Sound and returning to Lyttelton with backloaded containers.

We have a separate page showing  photos of the "Archangelgracht's" Antarctic voyage which can be seen by clicking here.

The captain of the "Archangelgracht" is Pieter Kampstra shown at left preparing to autograph some philatelic covers

The picture at left shows Pieter Kampstra autographing one of the above covers.

Note: This cover has a Ross Dependency stamp which the vessel was entitled to use as McMurdo base is within the Ross Dependency. The envelope was posted through the Ross Dependency agency in Christchurch.

Note: The above cover has had the Ross Dependency stamp wrongly postmarked with an ordinary Christchurch postmark contrary to postal regulations.

Note: this cover was posted a few days after the vessel returned from the Antarctic and accordingly has a New Zealand stamp paying the postage.