The  objective  of  the  cruise was  to  carry  out  an  intensive  winter  field  campaign  that provides new  oceanographic, marine  biology  and  sea  ice  physics  data  from  the  output  end  of  the Transpolar  Drift  in  Fram  Strait. Norwegian coastguard icebreaker KV Svalbard was used as a platform for two drift stations, taking place in 10-30 April 2007. The second stage of this project will accomplished in 2008 (six weeks). The vessel penetrated into the Transpolar Drift to about 80°-81° N. The ship partly drifted and partly steamed south along the lower limb of the Transpolar Drift, across the DAMOCLES freshwater and ice thickness observational array at 79° N, and south to the corresponding array at 74° N. Helicopter sections (ice thickness profiling (Gerland et al. in press), short ice stations with oceanographic measurements and snow and ice surveys) were made across the drift stream. The sampling was a combination of stations moored to selected ice floes, and stations during the southward steaming.