MV Captain Kurbatskiy (Капитан Курбацкий) was a Russian SA-15 type cargo ship originally known as Nizhneyansk (Нижнеянск) after a port of the same name. The ship was delivered from Valmet Vuosaari shipyard in 1983 as the second ship of a series of 19 icebreaking multipurpose arctic freighters built by Valmet and Wärtsilä, another Finnish shipbuilder, for the Soviet Union for year-round service in the Northern Sea Route. These ships, designed to be capable of independent operation in arctic ice conditions, were of extremely robust design and had strengthened hulls resembling those of polar icebreakers.
In 1996, after 13 years of service under Soviet and later Russian Far East Shipping Company (FESCO), the ship was sold to Bandwidth Shipping Corporation, who renamed it Magdalena Oldendorff and later chartered it as a support ship for the 20th Indian Antarctic Expedition. In 2003 the ship changed hands again and the new owner, Crystal Waters Shipping, renamed it Ocean Luck. Since 2010 the ship sailed as Captain Kurbatskiy under the ownership of Fern Shipping. Decommissioned and sold for scrapping in Alang, India, in 2011, Captain Kurbatskiy arrived at the breakers on 12 November 2011.
History
Development and construction
The history of the SA-15 class cargo ships dates back to the late 1970s when the leading Finnish shipbuilders Wärtsilä and Valmet both developed designs that met the requirements set by the Ministry of the Merchant Marine of the Soviet Union (MORFLOT) for the new class of arctic cargo ships capable of year-round operation in the Northern Sea Route. An initial order for nine ships, six for Wärtsilä for FIM 1.2 billion and three for Valmet for FIM 600 million, While initially the idea of ordering two similar but technically different series of ships for the same purpose was to gain operational experience for the future arctic freighters, After the initial series Valmet received another follow-up order for five ships of slightly different design, sometimes referred to as the SA-15 Super class due to the minor improvements based on the operators' experiences in the arctic.
Career
Nizhneyansk (1983–1996)
The first SA-15 class ship from Valmet, Nizhneyansk, was delivered from the Vuosaari shipyard in Helsinki on 21 January 1983, about three months ahead of the contracted delivery time.
Ocean Luck (2003–2010) and Captain Kurbatskiy (2010–2011)
The ship changed owners again in 2003 when it was purchased by Crystal Waters Shipping and renamed Ocean Luck. The ship, managed by a Ukrainian shipping company Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine KSU, retained its Liberian registry.
Captain Kurbatskiy was offered for sale in August 2011 for US$7 million, which was slightly higher than the current demolition prices for such vessel in India. However, in late 2011 it was reported that the vessel had been sold for breaking in Alang, India. The scrappers paid US$515 per ton for the vessel with a light displacement of 10,738 tons, resulting in a total price of roughly US$5.5 million. The ship arrived at Alang on 12 November 2011.
Design
The hull form of the ship, a result of intensive model tests in both open water and model ice, was very different from that of conventional merchant vessels, being more akin to polar icebreakers than traditional cargo ships. However, in addition to good icebreaking and manoeuvring capabilities in various ice conditions the vessel had to be able to operate in open water without bottom slamming or shipping of green water occurring in rough seas. Despite the compromises the ship had impressive icebreaking capability — the SA-15 class ships were designed to break level ice up to one metre () in thickness with a snow layer of in continuous motion without icebreaker assistance.
The harsh operating conditions of the arctic seas placed high requirements on the strength, reliability and redundancy of the propulsion machinery, especially for single-screw ships operating independently without icebreaker escort. For this reason the robust propulsion system had several innovative features and prototype arrangements to improve the ship's operational capability. Propulsion power was provided by two 14-cylinder Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14ZV40/48 4-stroke medium-speed diesel engines running on heavy fuel oil, each with a maximum continuous output of at 560 rpm. As a precaution against failure of the propeller pitch control mechanism the main engines were directly reversible. The main engines were connected to a single propeller shaft through a double input/single output single-stage reduction gear equipped with separate multi disc clutches and Voith fluid couplings. The hydrodynamic couplings that allowed over 100% slipping between input and output shafts were used in difficult ice conditions to increase propeller torque and protect the main engines from large torque variations resulting from propeller blades hitting the ice. The fully locking mechanical clutches were used to improve fuel efficiency when the ship was operating in open water or light ice conditions.