Here is a bunch of recent photographs from the construction of LK-60:
That cast steel stem looks pretty awesome. Still, the US can’t match this?
Here’s some corrections and additional information to the article you posted above:
The Baltiisky Yard is also constructing the world’s most powerful diesel-engined icebreaker. The LK-25 (project 22600) will be 146,8 meters long and have a deadweight of 22258 tons. It will have a crew of 38 and will be able to operate autonomously for 60 days in up to two meters thick ice. The vessel named “Viktor Chernomyrdin". It is built for the Russian state company Rosmorport and was orginally to be completed by the end of 2015. However, delays have been reported from the yard.
All construction stopped in December 2013 when the vessel was discovered to be 2,500 tons overweight and as a result the draft was increased by about 70 cm (2.3 ft). Icebreakers are not only weight critical as the designers discovered, but also draft critical in such way that if the maximum design draft is exceeded, the hull no longer “works” because the parts designed for icebreaking would be submerged. They say the project is 24 to 28 months behind schedule, but on the Russian online forum some guys said that while there’s a lot of activity around LK-60 (the new nuclear-powered icebreaker), nothing is happening on the nearby slip where only a few blocks of LK-25 have been laid down. If you check the link above, you can see the current state of LK-25 in the second photograph, on the right hand side.
Project 21180
Also the Russian Armed Forces and the oil industry are ordering icebreakers. The Admiralty Yard in St.Petersburg in late April this year started the construction of the first of four icebreakers of the 21180 project for the Ministry of Defence. The diesel-engined “Ilya Muromets” will be 84 meters long, 20 meters wide and will have a cruising capacity of 60 days. It is planned to be ready by 2017.
While these are listed here among “real” icebreakers, they are more comparable to the icebreaking rescue vessels delivered from Nordic Yards this year. They can break about 60-80 cm ice. Since naval ships are under EU sanctions, these ships will be the first icebreakers fitted with Russian-made azimuth thrusters instead of units made by ABB, Steerprop or Rolls-Royce. We’ll see…
Gas company Novatek and its Yamal LNG project will need icebreaker assistance for its grand Sabetta port on the Yamal Peninsula coast. In April this year, Rosatom signed a contract with the Vyborg Yard on the construction of a 10 MW icebreaker which is accompany tankers to and from Sabetta. The deal is part of Rosatom’s bigger agreement with the Yamal LNG consortium.
The port icebreaker is based on Aker Arctic’s “Aker ARC 124” design with four 2.5 MW azimuth thrusters: two in the stern, two in the bow. The vessel is designed specifically to operate in the thick brash ice in the port of Sabetta.
Oil company Gazprom Neft has ordered a 22 MW icebreakers from the Vyborg Yard. The vessel, which is designed by the Finnish Aker Arctic Technology, will operate in the Ob Bay where the company is in the process of opening the Novy Port oil project.
Two 22 MW icebreakers based on Aker Arctic’s “Aker ARC 130 A” design. Again, the vessel has two azimuth thrusters in the stern and one in the bow, being a further developmend of the icebreaker concept developed for the Finnish government. These ships are something to look forward to - in terms of raw power and level icebreaking capability, they are no match for the nuclear-powered monsters, but in ridged ice fields and other challenging conditions they can outrun and outmaneuver pretty much everything.
By the way, here are some Azipods intended for the Finnish icebreaker, fresh from the factory. The new Russian ones will have similar units:
Project 21900
Another three diesel-engined vessels of the project 21900 are under construction at the Vyborg Yard. One of them, the “Vladivostok”, is to be ready for handover to owner Rosmorport in the course of spring 2015, while another two, the “Murmansk” and the “Novorossiisk” are to be completed in the course of the year. Two other ships of the kind have already been constructed at the Baltic Yard in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The project 21900 project is developed for large-scale oil tanker assistance, as well as towing, transportation and rescue missions in icy waters.
Icebreaker R-70202
In the Russian-owned Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, an icebreaker of the type R-70202 is under construction. The “Murmansk” vessel was floated out of the yard dry dock in April this year and a second vessel of the type is in the process.
“Project 21900” and “Icebreaker R-70202” actually refer to the same type of vessels. Three Project 21900M icebreakers of conventional twin azimuth design are under construction: two at Vyborg Shipyard (Vladivostok and Novorossiysk) and one at Arctech (Murmansk). These are a further development of the two existing Project 21900 icebreakers, Moskva and Sankt-Peterburg.
Let’s conclude this with a quote from Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft:
“We have eight times the GDP — probably about eight and a half right now — of Russia,” he said. “Russia has a fleet of over 25 ocean-going icebreakers. They’re building six new nuclear icebreaker. And here we are trying to cobble together and maybe reactivate a 37-year-old icebreaker. Because that’s the best we can do.”
