''Katarina'' is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house class ...

of the Kotka School of Nautical Studies. Built by

Valmet Valmet Oyj is a Finnish company and a developer and supplier of technologies, automation systems and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries. Valmet has over 200 years of history as an industrial operator. Formerly owned by the S ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

in 1953 as ''Aranda'', she was the second vessel to bear the name. Until 1989, she served as a transport vessel for the Finnish National Board of Navigation and a

research vessel A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated ...

for the Finnish Institute of Marine Research.

Career

In 1949, the Finnish National Board of Navigation ordered an ice-strengthened passenger ship to transport people and cargo to the islands in the Archipelago Sea. The new vessel was launched in 1951 and christened ''Aranda''. She was the second vessel to bear the name after the previous ''Aranda'' had been handed over to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. History Making one party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history. ...

after

World War II 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 opposing ...

. Due to these reparations, the delivery of the vessel was delayed until 1953. While primarily built as a "winter boat" for the Archipelago Sea communities, but during the summer months she served as a

for the Finnish Institute of Marine Research. During this time, she sometimes ventured outside the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

, such as to Svalbard in 1957. In the early 1960s, she was sometimes used as a training ship for maritime schools. She was refitted twice, in 1976 and 1983. When the third ''Aranda'', a purpose-built research vessel for the Institute of Marine Research, was built in 1989, the old ''Aranda'' was renamed ''Katarina'' and transferred to the Kotka School of Nautical Studies to serve as a training ship.

General characteristics

''Katarina'' is long and has a beam of . With a displacement of 1,100 tonnes, she draws of water. Her hull is strengthened for navigation in ice according to the Finnish-Swedish ice class rules and she carries an

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 ...

of 1A. Built as an icegoing ship, ''Katarina'' was fitted with propellers in both stern and bow. Previously, such propulsion arrangement had been utilized in Finnish

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. Her main engines, a

4-cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

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 technolo ...

4R22HF and a

8-cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

Wärtsilä 8R22HF medium-speed diesel generating sets, produce 590 and 1,180kW of electricity, respectively. The propulsion motors are rated 855kW (stern) and 630kW (bow). In addition, ''Katarina'' has a

bow thruster Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...

and a stern thruster, both rated at 215kW. When her engine room was rebuilt in 1983, ''Aranda'' became a testbed for a diesel-electric propulsion system utilizing

cycloconverter A cycloconverter (CCV) or a cycloinverter converts a constant amplitude, constant frequency AC waveform to another AC waveform of a lower frequency by synthesizing the output waveform from segments of the AC supply without an intermediate DC lin ...

s and

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

(AC) propulsion motors.Cycloconverters for the new icebreaker from Kymmene-Strömberg. Navigator 1985. This arrangement was then used in the 1986-built diesel-electric icebreaker ''Otso'' and later became ''de facto'' standard for large diesel-electric ships.

References

{{Reflist 1953 ships Ships built in Helsinki Research vessels of Finland