General news

12 FSUE “Rosmorport” icebreakers implement assistance amid heavy ice conditions in the Greater Port Saint-Petersburg

At the present moment the Gulf of Finland witnesses exceedingly heavy ice conditions, comparable with severe winter 2002-2003. A recent thaw and strong north-west wind resulted in ice with 1 meter depth in some places and a compression rate of 3 degrees, which makes convoy assistance almost impossible. Therefore, a separate icebreaker assistance of each vessel is necessary. According to the Icebreaker Operations Headquarters of the seaport administration, 80 vessels is waiting for an assistance at the present moment.

Today, icebreakers Moskva and Yermak implement assistance towards the seaport of Primorsk, icebreaker Sankt-Peterburg leads vessels to Vysotsk and icebreaker Kapitan Sorokin works on the route from an entrance buoy to the ice edge in the western direction.

Icebreakers Mudyug, Tor and Karu work on the routes to the seaports of Saint Petersburg, Ust-Luga and to the north-east towards seaports of Vysotsk and Primorsk. Icebreaker Kapitan Izmaylov operates on the way to the seaport of Vyborg and the Saimaa Canal. Icebreakers Yuri Lisyansky, Semen Dezhnev, Ivan Kruzenshtern and Kapitan Zarubin are on the watch in the seaport of Saint Petersburg water area and at Kronstadt.

An additional point is, that owing to the main engine breakdown of Kapitan Plakhin, JS North Western Shipping Company icebreaker, the FSUE “Rosmorport” icebreakers will undertake the assistance of small vessels of “river-sea” type with deadweight up to 5000 tons from the beginning of February till the mid-March.

By the end of February the situation amelioration is not expected — the whole Gulf of Finland water area is estimated to be covered with ice. The icebreaker assistance order is set by the Icebreaker Operations Headquarters under the auspices of the Greater Port Saint Petersburg administration.

According to the Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport commission, FSUE “Rosmorport” has sent a Kapitan Dranitsin icebreaker (which is returning from the Antarctic passage to its home port of Murmansk) to assist other 12 enterprise’s icebreakers implementing operations in the Greater Port Saint Petersburg and on the approaches.

FSUE “Rosmorport” press-secretary