Fedor Ushakov transits Northern Sea Route unassisted in 8.5 days
On 24 November 2017 Fedor Ushakov, a new multifunctional icebreaking standby vessel, built to order for Sovcomflot (SCF Group) to service the Sakhalin-2 project, successfully completed her first eastward passage along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Bound for her permanent operational base on the Sakhalin Island (the Sea of Okhotsk) shelf, the vessel covered a high-latitude route without the assistance of an icebreaker, despite the late stage of the Arctic Ocean navigation season and challenging ice conditions along several route segments.
During this passage, Fedor Ushakov safely covered 2,194 nautical miles (4,063 km) from Cape Zhelaniya (the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago) to Cape Dezhnev at Chukotka, the easternmost point of Russia’s mainland. The vessel covered this distance in 8 days9 hours and 58 minutes, moving at an average speed of 10.9 knots (20.2 km/h), which tops the performance of many commercial vessels in ice-free open waters.
During the voyage, Fedor Ushakov exchanged information on the ice situation along the route with the NSR’s management, as well as Atomflot icebreakers, and was provided with all the necessary information and navigational data. During the voyage, the crew was bolstered with the addition of a second master/ice advisor, whose extensive experience in high-latitude navigation was very helpful both during the preparations for and throughout the voyage itself.