On January 29, 2016 in Nizhny Novgorod at the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard OJSC there was held the official launch ceremony of the Sommers dredger with hopper capacity of 1000 cubic meters, constructed in order to maintain sea depths in Ust-Luga Seaport.

The participants of the event were the General director of FSUE Rosmorport Andrey Tarasenko,  the General director of Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard OJSC Nikolay Zharkov, the Head of the administration of the Sormovskiy district of the city of Nizhny Novgorod Vyacheslav Rudakov, the Director of the Civil Shipbuilding Department of JSC “United Shipbuilding Corporation” Igor Shakalo, the General director of MNP Group Dmitriy Khritin and others.

A traditional vessel “christening” ceremony took place during the event. According to the naval tradition, Tatiana Medvedeva, the vessel's “godmother” broke a bottle of champagne over the bow of the vessel, marking the beginning of its "new life" and presented an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who is considered the patron saint of travelers and sailors, to the Director of the North-Western Basin Branch of FSUE Rosmorport Sergey Pylin,. It is in the North-Western Basin Branch of the enterprise where the further use of the vessel is planned.

Sommers is one of the three dredgers with  hold capacity of 1000 cubic meters. All vessels of this series are equipped with the necessary high-performance dredging equipment suitable fore the climatic conditions of their areas of use.

The construction is carried out in the modern and high-tech Russian shipyard Krasnoye Sormovo, OJSC.

In the future FSUE Rosmorport will have the right to use the working design documentation of this project for shipbuilding in Russian shipyards. Moreover, the production technology has already been passed on to Krasnoe Soromovo Shipyard, where its personnel completed training in the construction technology and received the developed design of the vessel approved by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipment.

Provided that the development of the world merchant fleet is directed at the increasing of vessels size, competitive ability of the seaports depends directly upon depths of their water areas. The new dredger allows FSUE Rosmorport to maintain water areas and access channels in seaports, performing dredging works promptly and with high quality.

For reference:

Dredger with hold capacity of 1000 cubic meter, construction No. 3001

Kneel laying date: 14.11.2014

Destination port: Ust-Luga

Name: Sommers

General technical characteristics:

Overall length (without bowsprit): 61,35 m

Beam: about 14,00 m

Draft  (according to the banded scale): about 61,35 m

Speed (with maximum draft and of 85% of maximum power): about 10,0 knots.