''Sevmorput'' ( rus, Севморпуть, p=sʲɪvmɐrˈputʲ,

Northeast Passage The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP) is the shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islands of Canada is accordingly called the Northwest Passage (N ...

) is a Russian

nuclear-powered Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

. The 1988-built vessel is one of only four nuclear-powered merchant ships ever built and, after returning to service in 2016 following an extensive refit, the only such vessel to remain in service .

History

Development and construction

After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

began developing the

Northern Sea Route The Northern Sea Route (NSR) (russian: Се́верный морско́й путь, ''Severnyy morskoy put'', shortened to Севморпуть, ''Sevmorput'') is a shipping route officially defined by Russian legislation as lying east of Nov ...

in order to support the economic exploitation of the vast natural resources of the northern regions. The ambitious plan initiated by the

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...

in the 1950s led to the construction of powerful

icebreaker 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 ...

s to escort cargo ships through the ice-covered waters and extend the navigating season in the Russian Arctic. The flagship of the post-war Soviet icebreaker fleet was the world's first

nuclear-powered icebreaker A nuclear-powered icebreaker is an icebreaker with an Nuclear marine propulsion, onboard nuclear power plant that produces power for the vessel's propulsion system. , Russia is the only country that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers ...

, ''Lenin''. While numerous

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...

s and

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

s were built with

nuclear marine propulsion Nuclear marine propulsion is propulsion of a ship or submarine with heat provided by a nuclear reactor. The power plant heats water to produce steam for a turbine used to turn the ship's propeller through a gearbox or through an electric generato ...

, attempts to utilize the nearly unlimited range provided by an onboard

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

to transport commercial cargo were limited to a small number of experimental prototypes. The United States had built the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship, ''Savannah'', primarily as a technological demonstrator and ambassador for the peaceful use of atomic power rather than an economically viable cargo ship. Similarly, both the West German ''Otto Hahn'' and the Japanese ''Mutsu'' were intended to be research ships and to provide experience from nuclear propulsion; the latter also never carried any commercial cargo. However, the Soviet Union continued developing nuclear-powered ships to support Arctic shipping and began building new nuclear-powered icebreakers in the 1970s. On 30 May 1978, the Ministry of the Merchant Marine (MORFLOT) and the

Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry The People's Commissariat of the Shipbuilding Industry of the USSR (''Народный комиссариат судостроительной промышленности CCCP'') was one of the central offices in the Soviet Union, the equivalent of ...

of the

signed a joint decision No. C-13/01360 for the development of an ice-strengthened

lighter aboard ship The lighter aboard ship (LASH) system refers to the practice of loading barges (lighters) aboard a bigger vessel for transport. It was developed in response to a need to transport lighters, a type of (usually but not always) unpowered barge, be ...

(LASH) carrier. The design work was assigned to the Leningrad-based Central Design Bureau "Baltsudoproekt". The keel of "Project 10081" was laid at Zaliv Shipyard in

Kerch Kerch ( uk, Керч; russian: Керчь, ; Old East Slavic: Кърчевъ; Ancient Greek: , ''Pantikápaion''; Medieval Greek: ''Bosporos''; crh, , ; tr, Kerç) is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of t ...

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

, on 1 June 1982 and the ship was launched on 20 February 1986. The nuclear-powered LASH carrier was named ''Sevmorput'' ( rus, Севморпуть, p=sʲɪvmɐrˈputʲ) after the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

abbreviation for the

(russian: Се́верный морско́й путь, Severnyy morskoy put). The ship's

Murmansk Shipping Company Murmansk Shipping Company (russian: Мурманское морское пароходство), often abbreviated as MSCO, is a Russian shipping company based in Murmansk (hence the name). One of the primary shipping companies operating in Arc ...

(MSCO) on 31 December 1988.Лихтеровоз-контейнеровоз "СЕВМОРПУТЬ". 1988 г. (in Russian)
. The overall price of the nuclear-powered cargo ship was reported to be around US$265 million.

Career

Murmansk Shipping Company (1988–2008)

After leaving the shipyard and entering commercial service, ''Sevmorput'' sailed through the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

and around Africa until finally reaching the Soviet Far East.Four Soviet Ports Bar Ship in Protest Over Nuclear Safety
Los Angeles Times, 8 March 1989. However, authorities in

Nakhodka Nakhodka ( rus, Нахо́дка, p=nɐˈxotkə) is a port city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the Trudny Peninsula jutting into the Nakhodka Bay of the Sea of Japan, about east of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai. Po ...

, Vostochny,

Magadan Magadan ( rus, Магадан, p=məɡɐˈdan) is a port town and the administrative center of Magadan Oblast, Russia, located on the Sea of Okhotsk in Nagayev Bay (within Taui Bay) and serving as a gateway to the Kolyma region. History Maga ...

and

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...

refused to accept the two-month-old ship into their ports due to popular protests. In addition the harbour workers also refused to load or unload any cargo or provide any port services due to fears of radiation leakage. This was caused by uncertainty about the safety of the ship's nuclear propulsion system and the shadow of the

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

only few years earlier. The local newspapers had also reported a four-minute emergency on board the nuclear icebreaker ''Rossiya'' only a week before the arrival of ''Sevmorput''. The ship was finally allowed to dock at Vladivostok on 13 March 1989.Project 10081 Sevmorput
GlobalSecurity.org. The initial plan was to utilize ''Sevmorput'' in international transport, and the Soviet government applied for a permission to have the ship make several stops in

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, in March 1990. However, the permission was denied because the evacuation and emergency response measures of the city were not deemed adequate in case of an accident involving the ship's nuclear reactor. Later the ship was mainly used on the Murmansk-

Dudinka Dudinka (russian: Дуди́нка; Nenets: Тут'ын, ''Tutꜧyn'') is a town on the Yenisei River and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It used to be the administrative center of Tay ...

route, but also made several trips to

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

in the early 1990s. The daily operating expenses of ''Sevmorput'' were reportedly around US$90,000 and she was not expected to make profit during the first two years of her career. In the late 1990s, ''Sevmorput'' was laid up in Murmansk due to delays in the refueling of her reactor.Lepse to get patched up
. Bellona Foundation, 29 June 1999. The refueling finally took place in 2001 and later the ship resumed service on the Dudinka route. In August 2007, it was reported that ''Sevmorput'' would be converted into the world's first nuclear-powered

drillship A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...

due to lack of demand for cargo operators for lighters and the need of specialized drilling vessels in the Russian Arctic. The conversion at the Zvezdochka plant in

Severodvinsk Severodvinsk ( rus, Северодвинск, p=sʲɪvʲɪrɐdˈvʲinsk) is a city in the north of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina, west of Arkhangelsk, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2 ...

was to take only 18 months.Murmansk gets the world's first nuclear-powered oil drilling vessel
BarentsObserver.com, 7 August 2007. However, the renovation project was cancelled in February 2008.

Atomflot (2008–present)

The management of the Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet was transferred from MSCO to

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that speciali ...

in 2008.Rosatom takes over Russia's nuclear powered icebreaker fleet
. Bellona Foundation, 28 August 2008. In October 2009, the general director of Atomflot announced that ''Sevmorput'' could remain in service for 15 years. In late October 2012, it was reported that ''Sevmorput'', which had been lying idle at the Atomflot base outside Murmansk since 2007, had been removed from the Russian Ship Register in July and would be sold for scrap.No future for nuclear-powered container ship
Barents Observer, 24 October 2012. However, in December 2013 it was reported that the decision to decommission the nuclear-powered ship had been cancelled and that the vessel would be brought back to service by February 2016. Following a two-year refit and refueling of the reactor, ''Sevmorput'' left Murmansk in November 2015 for the first time in nine years to carry out sea trials in the Barents Sea. Since returning to service in 2016, the world's only nuclear-powered cargo ship has been chartered mainly by the

Russian Ministry of Defence The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, Минобороны России, informally abbreviated as МО, МО РФ or Minoboron) is the govern ...

for transporting cargo related to the development of military infrastructure in the Arctic. In addition, the vessel has occasionally transported supplies for oil and gas projects. Yamal and other Russian Icebreakers (19619184325)

Yamal and other Russian Icebreakers (19619184325)

In October 2018, the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), Rosatom and various Russian fishing industry organizations began discussing the possibility of transporting Pacific salmon caught in

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

to western Russia along the Northern Sea Route using ''Sevmorput''. Initially, two test shipments of 5,000tonnes of frozen fish from

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky ( rus, Петропавловск-Камчатский, a=Петропавловск-Камчатский.ogg, p=pʲɪtrɐˈpavləfsk kɐmˈtɕatskʲɪj) is a city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultur ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

were planned for 2019, but the second voyage was later cancelled after the first voyage turned out to be less profitable than expected. On 21 March 2019, ''Sevmporput'' sailed for the first time from

Archangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near i ...

to Utrenneye (Salmanovskoye) natural gas field at

Gyda Peninsula The Gyda Peninsula () is a geographical feature of the Siberian coast in the Kara Sea. It takes its name from the river Gyda, that flows on the peninsula. It is roughly 400 km long and 360 km wide. This wide peninsula lies between t ...

to transport 17,000 tons of construction goods for

Novatek Novatek (russian: ПАО «НОВАТЭК», , ) is Russia's second-largest natural gas producer (behind Gazprom), and the seventh-largest publicly traded company globally by natural gas production volume. The company was originally known as OAO F ...

's Arctic LNG-2 project. The passage took in total of five days. The ship completed the same journey also the next year in March 2020, delivering 20,000 tons of goods. While Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers had occasionally operated in the Gulf of Finland, ''Sevmorput''s pilot voyage in September 2019 marked the first time commercial cargo was carried to the Baltic Sea on board a Russian nuclear-powered vessel. While the vessel later returned to Murmansk, the sinking of the only Russian floating dock capable of accommodating the vessel in November 2018 forced ''Sevmorput'' to sail back to Saint Petersburg for propeller repairs in December 2019. After transporting a second shipment of fish from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Saint Petersburg in September 2020, reportedly on the orders of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

, ''Sevmorput'' loaded prefabricated building modules for the new

Vostok Station Vostok Station (russian: :ru:Восток (антарктическая станция), ста́нция Восто́к, translit=stántsiya Vostók, , meaning "Station East") is a Russian Research stations in Antarctica, research station in ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

and departed on 5 October. This would mark the first time a nuclear-powered surface ship would sail to the Earth's southernmost continent. After leaving the Baltic Sea and passing through the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

, ''Sevmorput'' headed south along the European and African coasts. However, shortly after crossing the

Equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

the vessel unexpectedly slowed down from its usual transit speed of about to about and, after sailing back and forth along its past track for a while, changed course towards Africa. Although Rosatomflot initially declined to comment the situation, unofficial reports implied that ''Sevmorput'' lost one of its four propeller blades and divers had to remove the opposite blade to balance the propeller. On 26 November, it was confirmed that ''Sevmorput'' would have to head back to Saint Petersburg for repairs and the construction of the new Vostok station would be postponed to 2021 due to deteriorating ice conditions in Antarctica. After a winter lay-up, the vessel was drydocked in April 2021 and the repairs were completed in July. Although

metal fatigue In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...

, foreign object and improper operation were all considered potential explanations, the root cause of the propeller blade failure could not be determined. In August 2021, ''Sevmorput'' sailed to Murmansk. After spending two months at quayside, the ship returned again to Saint Petersburg to load nuclear power plant components for

Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant ( bn, রূপপুর পারমাণবিক বিদ্যুৎকেন্দ্র) will be a 2.4 GWe nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. The nuclear power plant is being constructed at Rooppur of Ish ...

under construction in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. The cargo will be shipped to Vladivostok for transshipment. In October 2021, BSK-Rybnaya Kompaniya charted the nuclear-powered cargo ship to transport frozen fish from Kamchatka. The first voyage along the Northern Sea Route is scheduled for November 2021.

Design

General characteristics

''Sevmorput'' 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

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the stern ...

. The breadth and depth of her hull are and , respectively. When loaded to the summer waterline, the ship draws of water. However, in ice-covered waters she operates with a slightly smaller draught of to improve the icebreaking characteristics of her raked stem. The

gross tonnage Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weigh ...

of ''Sevmorput'' is 38,226 and net tonnage 11,468. The ship's

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 ...

is 33,980 tons at maximum draught and 26,480 tons while operating at reduced draught in ice. Her maximum displacement is 61,880 tons. Although originally designed according to the USSR Register of Shipping rules of 1981 to the highest Soviet

ice class Ice class refers to a notation assigned by a classification society or a national authority to denote the additional level of strengthening as well as other arrangements that enable a ship to navigate through sea ice. Some ice classes also have r ...

available for merchant ships, ULA, ''Sevmorput'' is currently classified by the

Russian Maritime Register of Shipping The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) maintains a ship register of the Russian Federation, based in Saint Petersburg, and is a marine classification society. Its activities aim to enhance safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, se ...

with a slightly lower ice class, UL. In addition to the national rules she was built according to the latest international regulations and conventions at the time, becoming the first ship built according to the ''Code of Safety for Nuclear Merchant Ships'' adopted by the

International Maritime Organization The International Maritime Organization (IMO, French: ''Organisation maritime internationale'') is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for regulating shipping. The IMO was established following agreement at a UN conference ...

in 1981.International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974
. International Maritime Organization. Nuclear icebreakers
. Bellona Foundation, 18 June 1997. Special attention was paid to the safety aspects of the vessel and, in addition to running aground or colliding with the reinforced bow of an icebreaker, the Soviet naval architects even took into account the possibility of a passenger aircraft crashing on ''Sevmorput''.

Power and propulsion

''Sevmorput'' is powered by a single

KLT-40 The KLT-40 family are nuclear fission reactors originating from OK-150 and OK-900 ship reactors. KLT-40 were developed to power the ''Taymyr''-class icebreakers (KLT-40M, 171 MW) and the LASH carrier ''Sevmorput'' (KLT-40, 135 MW).nuclear fission reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from n ...

with a thermal output of 135 megawatts. The reactor core contains of 30–40- or 90-percent90 % according to information provided to Norwegian government in 1990, 30–40 % according to

Bellona Foundation The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental Non-governmental organization, NGO headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with branches in Europe and North America. Founded in 1986 by Frederic Hauge and Rune Haaland as a direct action protest gr ...

citing communication with

. (Diakov, Anatoli C. et al.) enriched uranium in uranium-zirconium alloy and has reportedly required refueling only twice. The nuclear power plant on board the vessel produces 215 tons of steam per hour at a pressure level of and temperature of . In case of emergency steam can also be produced by a diesel-powered boiler (50 t/h, 2.45 MPa, 360 °C). Unlike the Russian ''Arktika''- and ''Taymyr''-class nuclear-powered icebreakers, which have three fixed-pitch propellers and utilize nuclear-turbo-electric powertrain, ''Sevmorput'' is propelled by a single 4-bladed ducted controllable-pitch propeller mechanically coupled to a GTZA 684 OM5

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

which has a maximum output of and turns the propeller at 115 rpm. At full power the propulsion system gives the ship a maximum speed of at a draught of . She can also maintain a speed of in thick level ice. For electricity production ''Sevmorput'' has three 1,700 kW

turbogenerator A turbo generator is an electric generator connected to the shaft of a steam turbine or gas turbine for the generation of electric power. Large steam-powered turbo generators provide the majority of the world's electricity and are also use ...

s and three 2,000 kW standby diesel generators. In addition in case of blackout the vessel also has two 200 kW emergency diesel generators.

Cargo capacity and handling

''Sevmorput'' can carry 74

lighters A lighter is a portable device which creates a flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of items, such as cigarettes, gas lighter, fireworks, candles or campfires. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid or ...

, each with a cargo capacity of 300 tons, in six holds and in two layers on the stern deck. The cargo hold hatches are designed for lighters with a total weight of 450 tons. The lighters are loaded and unloaded with a large

gantry crane A gantry crane is a crane built atop a gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the world, to small shop cranes, us ...

, manufactured by

KONE Kone Oyj (; officially stylized as KONE and trading as KONE Corporation) is an elevator engineering company employing over 60,000 personnel across 60 countries worldwide. It was founded in 1910 and is now headquartered in Espoo near Helsinki, F ...

, with a span of and lifting capacity of 500 tons. The gantry crane has two three-ton auxiliary cranes. When not carrying lighters, ''Sevmorput'' can carry both 20- and 40-foot containers weighing up to 20.3 and 30.5 tons, respectively, in three layers. The total container capacity of the ship is . While loading and unloading are usually done by shore-based cranes, a small number of containers can be handled with two container attachments to the gantry crane in ports that do not have cranes capable of handling containers. The lifting capacity of the attachments is 38 tons. Later, ''Sevmorput'' has been fitted with two Russian-manufactured 60-tonne hydraulic boom cranes with a lifting radius of . The new cranes can also be used in tandem to lift 120-tonne loads.

Notes

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=March 2017 Ships built in the Soviet Union Nuclear-powered merchant ships Icebreakers of Russia Merchant ships of the Soviet Union 1986 ships Murmansk Shipping Company Ships built at the Zalyv Shipbuilding yard