Rosatomflot’s icebreaker escorted the largest container ship in the North Sea route history

(The main task of the ice escort was to ensure safe passage of ships through solid ice)

Chennai:

TheRosatomflot’s nuclear icebreaker Ural escorted a convoy of two vessels including the bulk carrier Smoke and the large container ship NewNewStar (with a container capacity of 3,534 TEU) in the East Siberian Sea on September 6. 

 

For the first time, a container ship having these dimensions (length: 231 meters, width: 32 meters) entered the waters of the Northern Sea Route.

The icebreaker Ural began escorting the ships at the eastern edge of the Chukchi Sea ice and completed its task at the western edge of the East Siberian Sea ice. The main goal of the icebreaker assistance was to ensure safe passage of the ships through the solid ice bridge. Having completed the passage, the container ship NewNew Star headed towards the port of St. Petersburg and the bulk carrier Smoke headed towards the port of Murmansk without assistance.

"The Northern Sea Route is enjoying increasing popularity among cargo carriers these days. The crews of the nuclear icebreaker Ural and the convoy vessels showed effective teamwork and professionalism which ensured safe passage through solid ice and maintained service speed of the vessels," commented Andrey Tenitsky, Advisor to Director General of Atomflot.

The icebreaker escorted the ships on the route of 150 nautical miles with an average speed of 12 knots.