''Aleksey Chirikov'' is a Russian

icebreaking An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

platform supply and standby vessel owned by

Sovcomflot Sovcomflot (russian: ПАО «Совкомфлот», ПАО «Современный коммерческий флот», , Modern Commercial Fleet). Sovcomflot is Russia's largest shipping company, and one of the global leaders in the maritime ...

. She and her sister ship, ''Vitus Bering'', were ordered on 16 December 2010 from

Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Arctech Helsinki Shipyard was a Finnish shipbuilding company that focused primarily on icebreakers and other icegoing vessels for arctic conditions. Between 2011 and 2019, Arctech Helsinki Shipyard built a total of 10 icebreaking vessels (yard n ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, shortly after the joint venture agreement between

STX Finland Cruise Oy STX Finland Oy, formerly Aker Yards Oy, was a Finnish shipbuilding company operating three shipyards in Finland, in Turku, Helsinki and Rauma, employing some 2,500 people. It was part of STX Europe, a group of international shipbuilding companie ...

and

United Shipbuilding Corporation , romanized_name = , former_name = , type = State owned enterprise , traded_as = , industry = Shipbuilding, Defense industry , genre = , fate = , predecessor = , successor = , founded = , founder = , defunct ...

had been signed. ''Aleksey Chirikov'' was delivered on 19 April 2013. She will be used in the Arkutun-Dagi offshore oil field in the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...

Construction

Only six days after the agreement for the formation of the company was signed between STX Finland Cruise Oy and United Shipbuilding Corporation on 10 December 2010, the newly founded Arctech Helsinki Shipyard received an order for two multipurpose icebreaking supply vessels from the Russian state-owned shipping company Sovcomflot. The value of the shipbuilding contract was US$200 million and the construction of the vessels would provide work for 1,000

man-year A man-hour (sometimes referred to as person-hour) is the amount of work performed by the average worker in one hour. It is used for estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labor required to perform a task. For example, researching and wri ...

s.Esko Mustamäki appointed as the Managing Director of Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Inc.
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 4 April 2011. Initially, both ships were set to be delivered to the customer in April 2013,Arctech receives an order for two new icebreaking Supply Vessels from Sovcomflot
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 16 December 2010. after which they will be used for standby, supply and

ice management Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opa ...

of an offshore platform operated by

Exxon Neftegas Limited Exxon Neftegas Limited (ENL; russian: Эксон Нефтегаз Лимитед) is a defunct subsidiary of the American oil company ExxonMobil which operated mostly in Russia, notably Sakhalin and other parts of the Far East. ENL was the primary ...

in the Arkutun-Dagi offshore oil field, located in the Sea of Okhotsk. Although the ship are constructed at Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, the majority of the steel blocks are manufactured by the Russian

Vyborg Shipyard Vyborg Shipyard PJSC (russian: ПАО «Выборгский судостроительный завод») is a shipbuilding company located in Vyborg, Russia. The company has a focus on icebreakers and other icegoing vessels for arctic conditions ...

as the

Hietalahti shipyard Hietalahti shipyard (also known as Helsinki New Shipyard, fi, Helsingin uusi telakka) is a shipyard in Hietalahti, in downtown Helsinki, Finland. Since 2019, it has been operated by a company named Helsinki Shipyard. History The shipyard, fi ...

no longer has such production capacity. Only five of the 42 hull blocks for the two vessels will be manufactured locally in Helsinki while the remaining blocks will be produced and partially outfitted in

Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus ne ...

, and then brought to Helsinki on a barge for final outfitting, painting and hull assembly.Arctech Started the Hull Assembly of Multifunctional Icebreaking Supply Vessel
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 19 January 2012. The production of the second vessel was started in Helsinki on 2 November 2012.Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Started the Production of Second Icebreaking Supply Vessel
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 2 November 2011. The keel of the second vessel was laid down on 3 July 2012, only three days after the first vessel, ''Vitus Bering'', had been floated out from the dry dock.Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Started the Hull Assembly of Arctic Offshore Vessel. Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 3 July 2012. Although initially set for the same delivery date in April 2013, ''Vitus Bering'' will be delivered four months ahead of schedule in December 2012. She left for

sea trial A sea trial is the testing phase of a watercraft (including boats, ships, and submarines). It is also referred to as a " shakedown cruise" by many naval personnel. It is usually the last phase of construction and takes place on open water, and ...

s on 22 November 2012, and on the following day the second vessel, ''Aleksey Chirikov'', was floated out from the dry dock.Arctic Offshore Vessel Will Be Delivered from Arctech 4 months in Advance
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 15 August 2012. She left for four-day sea trials on 19 March 2013.Arctic offshore vessel Aleksey Chirikov on sea trial
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, 19 March 2013. Another sea trial was conducted in early April 2013 and ''Aleksey Chirikov'' was delivered to Sovcomflot on 19 April. The ship is named after the 18th-century Russian explorer Aleksei Ilyich Chirikov who was the first Russian to reach

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

Technical details

''Aleksey Chirikov'' is an upgraded version of ''

SCF Sakhalin ''SCF Sakhalin'' (russian: СКФ Сахалин) is a Russian icebreaking platform supply and standby vessel owned by SCF Sakhalin Vessels Limited, a subsidiary of Sovcomflot. The ship was built by Aker Finnyards Helsinki shipyard in Finland ...

'', a similar icebreaking platform supply vessel built at Helsinki in 2005.SCF Sakhalin
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard. Several modifications have been made to the original design, including adding a fourth main engine, but the hull form is nearly identical. The most noticeable external difference is the covered foredeck, which will protect the mooring equipment from icing. ''Aleksey Chirikov'' is

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

and at the waterline. The hull has a moulded breadth of and depth of to upper deck. When loaded to a draught of , the

deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provi ...

of the ship is 4,191 tons. The four

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

Helsinki yard turns to special vessels for Arctic conditions
Helsingin Sanomat, 14 August 2012. diesel generating sets — two twelve-cylinder 12V32 and two

six-cylinder The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balan ...

6L32 engines — have a combined output of and provide power for all shipboard consumers, including two 6.5 MW

ABB ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to create ...

Azipod Azipod is a trademark azimuth thruster pod design, a marine propulsion unit consisting of a fixed pitch propeller mounted on a steerable gondola ("pod") containing the electric motor driving the propeller, allowing ships to be more maneuverable ...

VI1600 propulsion units.References - Propulsion Products
ABB. Multifunctional icebreaking supply vessel (MIBSV)
. Arctech Helsinki Shipyard. Being a

double acting ship A double acting ship is a type of icebreaking ship designed to run ahead in open water and thin ice, but turn around and proceed astern (backwards) in heavy ice conditions. In this way, the ship can operate independently in severe ice conditions ...

, ''Aleksey Chirikov'' is designed to be able to break ice both ahead and astern. She is capable of operating in ice up to thick and maintain a speed of in level ice with a thickness of .Russian multi-purpose icebreaking PSV begins build in Finland
. The Motor Ship, 20 January 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleksey Chirikov 2012 ships Ships built in Helsinki Icebreakers of Russia