Mudyug (icebreaker). Diesel-electric icebreaker "Mudyug"

The coastline of Russia along the Arctic Ocean is so great that an icebreaker fleet is needed for the country. But icebreakers work not only in the North. They conduct ships all year round, and on freezing seas and along rivers.

History of the icebreaking fleet of Russia

On the northern rivers of Russia, icebreakers have been used for a long time. The first icebreaker ship was built in Kronstadt in 1864, and at the end of the 19th century the icebreaker fleet was officially established. The famous icebreaker Ermak, the idea of creation of which belonged to Vice Admiral SO Makarov and the well-known scientist DI Mendeleyev, was laid down at the English shipyard in 1897.

The Maritime Ministry of the Russian Empire in 1913 announced a tender for the construction of twelve line and port icebreakers. The world's first linear icebreaker "Svyatogor" was built in 1917 by the firm "Sir Amstrong and Co.", designed by SO Makarov. Later it was renamed and began to bear the name "Krasin".

The first Soviet icebreakers were built in the domestic shipbuilding plants in 1938-1941. The ice fleet of the Soviet Union consisted of ships of domestic, British, German, Danish, Finnish and Canadian construction.

The Soviet icebreaking fleet was the first in the world to replenish the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin in 1959, built at the Admiralty Shipyard.

Diesel icebreakers for the Soviet fleet were built at the shipyards of Finland. These were powerful ships of the Moscow type and icebreakers of the Captain Sorokin type with a capacity of 16.2 MW designed for navigation in the mouth of Arctic rivers and in regions with shallow depths at temperatures of -50 ° C, as well as icebreakers of the Mudyug type. By the end of Soviet history, the Russian icebreaker fleet numbered 36 vessels.

Mudyug Island

In the White Sea near the mouth of the Northern Dvina is an island with picturesque nature, which attracts tourists and beauty, and clean sea air, and a terrible history. Mudyug for Arkhangelsk had an important strategic significance, the same as Kronstadt for St. Petersburg.

During the First World War and the beginning of the Civil War, there was a concentration camp for prisoners of war created by the interventionists, who later became an ex-convict prison. In the camp, and then the prison there were inhuman conditions, few of them survived, so Mudyug was called the "island of death".

Now on the island there is a historical and natural reserve, which includes the remains of the camp and prison, the beacon sign of 1875 and the lighthouse of 1938 built.

Monument to the victims of the intervention was installed in memory of those killed on the island in 1928, first in stone and cement, and in 1958 it was replaced by granite.
The name of the island is the ship. Mudyug is a diesel-electric icebreaker with a capacity of 7 MW built in 1982.

The icebreaker "Mudyug"

Translation of this name from the Finno-Ugric - "winding river". The name, in general, corresponds to the current work of the auxiliary icebreaker.

It was built in 1982 at the famous Finnish shipyard "Wärtsilä" (icebreakers in Finland break ice in all icebreaking fleets of the world), as well as two other icebreakers - "Dixon" and "Magadan" - after it. He started his career "Mudyug" from work in the Murmansk Shipping Company, then was transferred to Arkhangelsk. In 1987, Mudyug was redesigned for the Swiss project. The front half of the icebreaker was completely rebuilt, and now its nose resembles a giant galosh. The vessel's tank became very spacious, but the maneuverability and the new nose, which was originally developed for the thin ice of Swiss lakes, was not able to break the thick ice of the Arctic. And an auxiliary icebreaker was transferred to St. Petersburg to the North-West branch of Rosmorport.

Now he cuts the young ice on the fairway in the Neva Bay, and the strip of clean water after him for wiring remains broad and even.

Characteristics of the icebreaker

The owner of the auxiliary icebreaker Mudyug is the Northwest Basin Branch of FSUE Rosmorport, it is assigned to the port of St. Petersburg. Rosmorport ships provide safe navigation in the water areas of Russian ports in the Baltic Sea and approaches to them.

An icebreaker with a power of 7.3 MW develops a speed of 16.5 knots on clean water. Its length is 111.6 meters, width - 22.2 meters, precipitation - 6.8 meters, height - 38 meters. The total displacement of the icebreaker is 8,154 thousand tons, icebreakability is 115 centimeters.

Icebreakability is the ability of an icebreaker to move forward in solid ice at full engine power, it shows the ice qualities of the ship and is measured by the maximum ice thickness in which the vessel can move continuously at a minimum speed.

According to Rosmorport, the icebreaker Mudyug can be in autonomous navigation for twenty-five days, and its navigation area in the Baltic Sea is unlimited.

Purpose of the icebreaker

The auxiliary icebreaker Mudyug is designed for independent icebreaker wiring of large-capacity vessels, that is, laying a canal of clear water free from ice. Because the length of the caravan depends on the length of the clean water channel behind the icebreaker, Mudyug can conduct caravans from several ships. It can also tow non-self-propelled vessels and floating structures not only in ice, but also in pure water. The specificity of the "icebreaker", which leaves behind a wide flat channel, allows him to tow a vessel on a long tow.

Its equipment makes it possible to extinguish fires on any structures, and not only on floating objects, and to perform work to assist vessels that are in distress, both in ice conditions and in clean water.

Icebreaker modernization experiment

Initially, icebreakability was solved by increasing the mass of the ship and the power of its power plants. But it turned out that the option in which ice is cut at a certain angle, rather than choking, as is customary, is more effective. In this case, the special shape of the hulls of the hull allows one to push the cut ice along the sides of the ship to the ice massif, leaving behind the icebreaker a clean strip of water, rather than fragments of ice, over which not every ship can pass.

The West German "Thyssen-Vaas" company referred to the successful experience of modernization of the icebreaker "Max Waldeck", and "Mudyug" got to the rework. The elongated bow and the anchor hills, hidden deep beneath its obtuse part, gave the wits an opportunity to call the icebreaker "galoshes" or "nostrils".

As sea trials took place in the summer, the ice in the region of Franz Josef Land was not very thick, and the tests gave satisfactory results. But in the winter, practical shortcomings of the ships brought up the shortcomings that had not been taken into account before. In the background, the ice could not move at all, and on the front it became jammed with ice. In addition, the glaciologists have proved that long-term ice with hummocks can not be cut at all, in contrast to the one-year-old ice, which was cut in the trials of Mudyug. The icebreaker, in the end, was transferred to the Baltic.

Festivals of icebreakers

In the first days of May 2014 the icebreakers festival took place. It was held in St. Petersburg, was the first in the world and was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the icebreaker fleet of Russia. Petersburg hosted a parade of icebreakers. Only on the first day of the festival it was visited by more than ten thousand people. The famous Arctic icebreaker Krasin with a rich and heroic history; The port icebreaker Ivan Krusenstern, named after the great traveler of Admiral IF Kruzenstern; One of six icebreakers named after the famous Soviet captains "Captain Zarubin"; Modern icebreakers with rescue equipment to extinguish fires in the open sea and fight oil spills "Moscow" and "St. Petersburg" - in such a remarkable company a worthy place was taken by the worker "Mudyug", an icebreaker for wiring vessels in the freezing seas.

The second time the festival was held in May 2015. It was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory and the feat of the participants of the Polar convoys during the Great Patriotic War. And again St. Petersburg hosted a parade of icebreakers. In addition to last year's participants, ice-breakers Krasin, Ivan Krusenstern, Mudyug and Moscow, Nevsky Zastava and Captain Sorokin participated in the festival.

The future of the Russian icebreaking fleet

Now the state program for the creation of a new icebreaker fleet of Russia is being developed, since most of the existing ships are subject to cancellation.

In particular, diesel-electric icebreakers will be built: linear for operation in the Arctic, power on the shafts of which is 25 MW; Linear for the freezing seas with a capacity of 16-18 MW; The auxiliary ones with a capacity of 7 MW, like the icebreaker Mudyug.

The icebreaker class LK-25D can, replacing the icebreakers Krasin and Admiral Makarov, ensure the delivery of cargoes and wiring in the eastern, and year-round - in the western region of the Arctic, on the Yenisei in summer navigation.

The LK-18D type icebreakers designed to replace the Captain Sorokin-type vessels can provide not only freight in the east of the Arctic and the Far East, but also new promising directions in the Far Eastern basin.
Icebreakers of the type LK-7D will not only replace the auxiliary diesel-electric ships of the Mudyug type.

The new generation icebreaker is also needed for the development of new transport routes in the Far East and the Arctic, and for servicing new ports and terminals.