Gennadiy Nevelskoy & Stepan Makarov in Helsinki, 27 November 2016

And now for something completely different – namely, Russian icebreakers. As some of you might already know, the Arctech Helsinki Shipyard (previously belonging to Wärtsilä, Masa-Yards, Aker and STX) in my home town is for sale by its Russian owners OSK (Объединенная судостроительная корпорация, the state-owned shipbuilding company), with the likely buyers being a group of Russian investors. While buyers from other countries have also shown interest, according to Russian sources the yard has been deemed by the state too important to let fall into non-Russian hands (ironically, the Finnish state never had any qualms about this). Right now, the yard has just one ship in its order books, the arctic gas condensate tanker Yuriy Kuchiev, which was due for delivery this year but looks likely to be delayed until next year. So I thought that today we would look back at somewhat happier times two years ago, when the Helsinki yard was building a series of four icebreaking supply vessels for Sovcomflot (Совкомфлот), or (in English) SCF for short.

Gennadiy Nevelskoy (Геннадий Невельской)

IMO 9742120
Built 2017, Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, Finland
Tonnage 8 362 GT
Length 104,40 m
Width 21,02 m
Draft 7,90 m
42 passengers
6 diesels, combined 21 000 kW
2 azimuthing propellers
2 bow thrusters
Service speed 16 knots

Stepan Makarov (Степан Макаров)

IMO 9753727
Built 2017, Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, Finland
Tonnage 8 365 GT
Length 104,40 m
Width 21,02 m
Draft 7,90 m
70 passengers
6 diesels, combined 21 000 kW
2 azimuthing propellers
2 bow thrusters
Service speed 15,50 knots

The Gennadiy Nevelskoy (Геннадий Невельской – note that since this is an English-language blog, I am using the English transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. For my native Finnish or, for example, German the transliteration can be different) is an icebreaking supply vessel ordered by SFC for use in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas fields. Originally contracted in April 2014 for a summer 2016 delivery, the ship's construction was seriously delayed until March 2017.

Although externally near-identical and of similar dimensions to Gennadiy Nevelskoy, the Stepan Makarov (Степан Макаров) is not a full sister ship but a modified design, a multifunctional icebreaking standby vessel, again designed for the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field. Both the Gennadiy Nevelskoy and Stepan Makarov are based on the icebreaking supply vessels Vitus Bering (Витус Беринг) and Aleksey Chirikov (Алексе́й Чириков) that Arctech delivered to SFC in 2012-2013. However, whereas the Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov were based on design by the Finnish icebreaker designers Aker Arctic, the Gennadiy Nevelskoy, Stepan Makarov and the latter's two sister ships were designed entirely in-house by Arctech. Originally, the Stepan Makarov was slated for a September 2016 delivery, but in the end this was delayed to June 2017.

The photos below show the Gennadiy Nevelskoy and Stepan Makarov at the outfitting quays of the Arctech Helsinki Shipyard on the afternoon of 27 November 2016 (it gets dark stupidly early in Finland during this time of the year, so "afternoon" is not a mistake on my part), photographed from the quayside next to the Clarion Hotel Helsinki in Jätkäsaari. As always, click on the images to see them in larger size.

The Gennadiy Nevelskoy looking near-complete on the outside, but far less so on the inside, judging from the fact it was four months before the ship was actually delivered.

This wide-angle shot has been used in quite a few articles. In addition to the Gennadiy Nevelskoy, you can see the bow of the Stepan Makarov on the left. The box-shaped buiding on the right is the shed covering the Helsinki yard's building dock, which allows work to be completed in a controlled environment, despite the occasionally harsh weather.

A view showing the Stepan Makarov a bit better. Unfortunately the ship was parked in such a way that you couldn't get decent side views of it.

Kships, as always, will return.