SA-15 is the project name for a series of icebreaking multipurpose cargo ships built in Finland for the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The ships, capable of independent operation in all prevailing arctic ice conditions, were the first merchant vessels designed for year-round operations in the Northern Sea Route. For this purpose they have hulls that resemble those of polar icebreakers and propulsion systems capable of withstanding ice loads.
While the ships are also known as the Norilsk class''' after the first ship, Norilsk, they are usually referred to by their project name which denotes a subarctic 15,000 DWT cargo ship.Kitagawa, H. et al. Northern Sea Route. Shortest Sea Route Linking East Asia and Europe. Ship & Ocean Foundation, 2001. . Nineteen SA-15 type ships were delivered by Finnish shipbuilders Wärtsilä and Valmet in 1982–1987, and two vessels remain in service .
History
Maintaining year-round traffic in the Northern Sea Route, especially between Murmansk and Dudinka that were the most important ports in the Soviet arctic region, had always been a high priority to the Soviet Union due to the economic exploitation of the vast natural resources of the northern regions. Northern Sea Route is also a potentially important link between Europe and Asia as it significantly reduces the transit time in comparison to the route through the Suez Canal. While the Soviet Union had constructed a large fleet of ice-strengthened cargo ships, they could not keep up with the large nuclear-powered icebreakers and were often damaged by ice during towing operations. In order to prevent this, a fundamentally new type of cargo ship was needed.
In the late 1970s Sudoimport, the Soviet foreign trade organization with a monopoly for the foreign trade of ships, requested for tenders for the design and construction of 20,000 DWT arctic cargo ships according to the specifications laid out by the Ministry of the Merchant Marine of the Soviet Union (MORFLOT). In terms of hull strength and engine power, these ships were to be in par with icebreakers that would escort them through the most difficult ice conditions.
Development and construction
Leading Finnish shipbuilders Wärtsilä and Valmet both developed designs that met the requirements for the new class of arctic cargo ships capable of year-round operation in the Northern Sea Route, Wärtsilä using knowledge and experience gained from building more than half of the world's icebreaker fleet in service at that time and Valmet from several types of ice strengthened cargo ships the company had built in the 1960s and 1970s, and an initial order for nine ships, six for Wärtsilä for FIM 1.2 billionMiljarditilaus Wärtsilälle – Kuusi jäätämurtavaa monitoimialusta NL:oon. Navigator 9/80. Page 41. and three for Valmet for FIM 600 million,Uusi aluevaltaus Valmetille – Kolme arktisen liikenteen monikäyttöalusta NL:oon. Navigator 9/80. Page 42. was placed in July 1980. Wärtsilä's order was the largest single contract made by a Finnish industrial company. In the following year three more ships were ordered from Wärtsilä and two from Valmet, resulting in a total order of 14 ships worth of FIM 3.5 billion.Jättitilaus toimitettu. Navigator 5/84.
While initially the idea of ordering two similar but technically different series of ships for the same purpose was to gain operational experience for the future arctic freighters, shortly after the deal was made public the shipyards approached Sudoimport to agree on a uniform design. Not only was running two parallel development projects wasting effort and resources for the shipyards, but constructing a single type of ships instead of two would bring savings to the customer in form of reduced maintenance and spare part costs. Wärtsilä's design was chosen as the standard for further development since it was ahead in the production schedule.Multipurpose vessels Arctic liner trade. Navigator 1982. However, despite the co-operative measures some dissimilarities between the ships built by Wärtsilä and Valmet remained, resulting in the crews considering of them as separate types of ships as the differences were most obvious from the operator's point of view.
The first ship of the class, Norilsk from Wärtsilä, was delivered on 13 November 1982 from the Perno shipyard in Turku, half a year behind schedule due to the prototype nature in many of its systems.Avain rikkauksiin. Navigator 1/83. The first ship from Valmet, Nizhneyansk, was delivered from the Vuosaari shipyard in Helsinki on 21 January 1983, about three months ahead of the contracted delivery time.NIZHNEYANSK from Valmet. Navigator 3/83. Page 17. The remaining twelve ships, all named after cities within the Soviet Union, were delivered in 1983–1984.
Shortly after the last SA-15 type ships of the initial order, Anadyr from Valmet and Nikel from Wärtsilä, were delivered on 23 and 30 March 1984, respectively, Valmet received a follow-up order from Sudoimport for five more ships of the same type. The contract, finalized on 13 July 1984, was worth of FIM 1.5 billion (US$263M) and was the biggest single order ever received by Valmet.Kaikesta Huolimatta: SA-15. Navigator 9/1984. Minor modifications were made to the design based on the operator's experiences during the exceptionally hard arctic winter,Finland's orderbook boosted by Soviet five year plan. The Motor Ship, Volume 65, Issue 767, June 1984. Page 11. resulting in a subclass sometimes referred to as SA-15 Super.Murmansk Shipping Company : Dry Cargo fleet – SA-15 Super. Retrieved 2011-01-19 The ships, named after Russian and Soviet explorers, were built in 1985–1987 and the final ship, Kapitan Danilkin, was delivered on 17 June. At that time, Valmet was already part of Wärtsilä Marine and a decision had been made to close the Vuosaari shipyard.Valkonen, M. Vuosaaren telakka-altaan kuntotutkimus ja käyttömahdollisuudet Vuosaaren sataman yhteydessä. Diplomityö. Rakennus- ja ympäristötekniikan osasto, Teknillinen Korkeakoulu, 2005.
Operational history
While the first ships suffered from prototype problems with e.g. the propeller pitch control mechanismNorrby, R.: Propellers for Soviet Arctic ships: Lessons from initial experience. Mar. Engng/Log, vol 89, 1984. Page 31. and returned to the shipyard for repairs under warranty, the feedback from the operators was generally positive from the beginning especially regarding the performance of the ships in difficult ice conditions which was deemed superior to earlier ULA class freighters. The vessels were capable of breaking level ice up to in thickness while maintaining a speed of 1–2 knots and proceed in even thicker ice by ramming.
Later reports state that the ships could maintain an average speed of 6 knots in winter and 12 knots in summer while operating in the Northern Sea RouteMulherin, N et al. The Northern Sea Route – Its Development and Evolving State of Operations in the 1990s. Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), April 1996. Retrieved 2011-02-08 and were capable of continuously breaking ice at five knots. With assistance from Arktika-class nuclear icebreakers the ships could operate in level ice with thickness of at two knots under their own power without towing,Brigham, L. W. Natural Conditions, Ice Navigation and Ship Design – Pushing the Limits. The 21st century – turning point for the Northern Sea Route? Proceedings of the Northern Sea Route User Conference, Oslo, 18-20 November 1999. Pages 57-62. but if the freighter is attached to the icebreaker's stern notch for close towing, the combination could maintain a speed of four knots in similar ice conditions, the same as the speed of the icebreaker when operating alone.
The strength of the SA-15 type ships was further proven when icebreaker Admiral Makarov, after having been immobilized for five days, pushed the freshly delivered Nizhneyansk at full power through the ice separating the vessels from Pevek, arriving at the city as the first ships of the year 1983.Horensma, P. The Soviet Arctic. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. . The freighter received only minor ice damage in the process. During the particularly difficult season, during which around fifty cargo ships were trapped in ice in the East Siberian Sea, the SA-15 type freighters were sent to the Northern Sea Route as soon as they were delivered from the Finnish shipyards. They were used to unload cargo from icebound ships and deliver the much-needed supplies to isolated communities along the coast. The ships also acted as escort icebreakers, using their stern notches to tow smaller ships through the ice fields even though it was not their original purpose. Among the ships that received assistance from the new SA-15 type ships was the nuclear icebreaker Sibir which had to be helped on several occasions by Okha. Unlike the freighters, the icebreaker had no abrasion-resistant coating and suffered from severe hull corrosion that considerably increased the ice resistance of the vessel.
Initial Soviet and Russian owners
The largest initial operator was Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO) which owned and operated a fleet of ten SA-15 type cargo ships in the western part of the Soviet arctic. It was followed by two companies operating in the eastern regions, Far East Shipping Company (FESCO) with seven and Sakhalin Shipping Company with two vessels.References . Aker Arctic Technology Inc. Retrieved 2011-02-08 Later MSCO transferred three ships to its affiliate, NB Shipping, and the ships were transferred from Russian to Cypriot register.
During the summer sailing season, the ships carried cargo along the Northern Sea Route, supplying the settlements and mining colonies on the East Siberian coast, and made several transit voyages from Europe to the Far East and Canada, each 25-day voyage taking around ten days less than a similar voyage through the Suez Canal. In winter the SA-15 type freighters mainly supported the Norilsk-Dudinka operation, providing a continuous flow of non-ferrous metal concentrates to the smelters of the Kola Peninsula and other industries within the Soviet Union, but also carried other cargo especially when the ice conditions became too difficult for other vessels. In 1990, Norilsk became the first ship to transport cargo from Japan to Europe via the Northern Sea Route.First of the SA15 freighters sold for scrap. SeaNews Turkey, 4 November 2010. Retrieved 2012-02-17 To promote the utilization of the Northern Sea Route, cargo space on board the SA-15 type ships was also leased to Western shipping companies and several experimental voyages for scientific purposes were made in the 1990s. For years the SA-15 type ships formed the core of the Soviet and later Russian fleet of icebreaking cargo ships.Kapitan Man, one of the later SA-15 Super type freighters, was involved in the Strait of Juan de Fuca laser incident on 4 April 1997.
In 2009, Igarka was used as a setting for the opening scene of the 2010 action movie The Expendables while the ship was staying at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for repair work. Although the SA-15 type ship owned by the Far East Shipping Company is not identified in the movie, both its name and the company logo are briefly visible in some shots.FESCO Vessel Becomes Film Set for Hollywood Stars . VladivostokTimes.com, 9 April 2009.
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