Magdalena Oldendorff
Encyclopedia
| Classification: | Russian Maritime Register of Shipping Russian Maritime Register of Shipping The activities of Russian Maritime Register of Shipping are aimed at providing the safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, security of ships, safe carriage of cargo, environmental safety of ships, prevention of pollution from ships, performance of authorisations issued by Administrations and... |
| Main engines: | 2 × Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines... -Sulzer Sulzer (manufacturer) Sulzer Ltd. is a Swiss industrial engineering and manufacturing firm, founded by Salomon Sulzer-Bernet in 1775 and established as Sulzer Brothers Ltd. in 1834 in Winterthur, Switzerland. Today it is a publicly owned company with international subsidiaries... 14ZV40/48 (2 × 7,700 kW) |
| Auxiliary engines: | 5 × Wärtsilä-Vasa 624 TS (5 × 810 kW) |
| Accommodation: | 42 crew 10 passengers |
MV Captain Kurbatskiy (Капитан Курбацкий) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n SA-15 class
SA-15 (ship)
SA-15 is the project name for a series of icebreaking multipurpose cargo ships built in Finland for the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The ships, capable of independent operation in all prevailing arctic ice conditions, were the first merchant vessels designed for year-round operations in the Northern...
cargo ship
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
originally known as Nizhneyansk (Нижнеянск) after a port of the same name
Nizhneyansk
Nizhneyansk is an urban locality in Ust-Yansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the delta of the Yana River, north from Deputatsky, the administrative center of the district. Population:...
. The ship was delivered from Valmet
Valmet
' was a Finnish state-owned conglomerate. Valmet was formed in 1951, when the state of Finland decided to group their various factories working on war reparations to the Soviet Union under one company...
Vuosaari shipyard
Vuosaari shipyard
Vuosaari shipyard was a shipyard located in the district of Vuosaari in Helsinki, Finland. Built by the Finnish state-owned company Valmet Oy in the 1970s, the shipyard delivered 33 newbuildings and participated in building around 100 other vessels before it was closed in 1987...
in 1983 as the second ship of a series of 19 icebreaking
Icebreaker
An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...
multipurpose arctic freighters built by Valmet and Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...
, another Finnish shipbuilder, for the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
for year-round service in the Northern Sea Route
Northern Sea Route
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...
. 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
Far East Shipping Company
The Far East Shipping Company is a Russian ship-owning company and the base company of FESCO Group. Founded in the 19th century in Vladivostok, the company now owns a fleet of 50 vessels, totaling 880 thsd DWT.- Share capital and management :...
(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
Indian Antarctic Program
The Indian Antarctic Program is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional program under the control of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. It was initiated in 1981 with the first Indian expedition to Antarctica...
. 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. She was decommissioned and sold for scrapping in Alang, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where she arrived on 12 November 2011.
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, was placed in July 1980. In the following year three more ships were ordered from Wärtsilä and two from Valmet, resulting in a total order of 14 ships worth of FIM 3.5 billion. 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, shortly after the deal was made public the shipyards approached Sudoimport to agree on a uniform design, resulting in a class of sub-arctic 15,000 DWT cargo ships, the SA-15 class. 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.Nizhneyansk (1983–1996)
The first SA-15 class ship from Valmet, the Nizhneyansk, was delivered from the Vuosaari shipyard in Helsinki on 21 January 1983, about three months ahead of the contracted delivery time.As the winter of 1983 was particularly difficult, the Nizhneyansk was sent to the Northern Sea Route to unload cargo from icebound ships and deliver the much-needed supplies to isolated communities along the coast. Superior to older freighters, the new SA-15 class ships also acted as escort icebreakers, using their stern notches to tow smaller ships through the ice fields even though it was not their original purpose. The strength of the new ships was further proven when icebreaker Admiral Makarov
Icebreaker Admiral Makarov
The Icebreaker Admiral Makarov is a large Russian icebreaker operated by the Far East Shipping Company . Completed in 1975, she is FESCO's oldest icebreaker. Admiral Makarov and her sister ship Krasin , are the largest of the four icebreakers in FESCO's fleet...
, after having been immobilized for five days, pushed the freshly delivered Nizhneyansk at full power through the ice separating the vessels from Pevek
Pevek
Pevek is a town and Arctic port in Chaunsky District, part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. After Anadyr and Bilibino it is the third largest town in Chukotka. Population: Municipally, the town is subordinated to Chaunsky Municipal district and together with Apapelgino and Yanranay, is...
, arriving at the city as the first ships of the year 1983.
Magdalena Oldendorff (1996–2003)
In 1996 the Nizhneyansk was sold to a LiberiaLiberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
n company Bandwidth Shipping Corporation, reclassified by Germanischer Lloyd
Germanischer Lloyd
The Germanischer Lloyd SE is a classification society based in the city of Hamburg, Germany. As a technical supervisory organization Germanischer Lloyd conducts safety surveys on more than 7,000 ships with over 100 Mio GT...
and renamed Magdalena Oldendorff. Operated by a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
shipping company Oldendorff Carriers, a subsidiary of Egon Olderdorff, the ship was chartered in 2000 as a support ship for the 20th Indian Antarctic Expedition
Indian Antarctic Program
The Indian Antarctic Program is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional program under the control of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. It was initiated in 1981 with the first Indian expedition to Antarctica...
. On 11 June 2002 the Magdalena Oldendorff, while on her second voyage to the Maitri Base, was immobilized by pack ice. 79 Russian scientists and 11 crew members were airlifted by helicopters to the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n research ship S.A. Agulhas
SA Agulhas
The SA Agulhas is an ice-strengthened research vessel. She was built in 1977, by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Shimonoseki, Japan. The SA Agulhas is South Africa's polar research vessel...
and returned to Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. After an unsuccessful rescue attempt by the Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
icebreaker Almirante Irízar in late August a decision was made for the ship to winter in the Bay of Muskegbukta and attempt to free itself when the ice started to melt with the beginning of the Antarctic summer. In late November the Magdalena Oldendorff freed itself and returned to Cape Town for the Christmas.
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 an UkrainianUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
shipping company Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine KSU, retained its Liberian registry.
In 2010 the ship was purchased by its last owner, Fern Shipping, and renamed Captain Kurbatskiy. After spending a brief period of time under Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
n flag the ship was again registered to Russia and classified by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
The activities of Russian Maritime Register of Shipping are aimed at providing the safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, security of ships, safe carriage of cargo, environmental safety of ships, prevention of pollution from ships, performance of authorisations issued by Administrations and...
. On 21 June 2011, after having been anchored off Muara Asam Asam in Kalimantan
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, for almost two months due to a commercial dispute on a quality of loaded nickel ore, seven crew members managed to purchase three litres of pure spirits from a ship chandler
Ship chandler
A ship chandler is a retail dealer in special supplies or equipment for ships.For traditional sailing ships items that could be found in a chandler might include: rosin, turpentine, tar, pitch , linseed oil, whale oil, tallow, lard, varnish, twine, rope and cordage, hemp, oakum, tools A ship...
to have a party. Unbeknownst to them, the captain of the ship had asked the ship chandler to deliver ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...
for the ship's medical kit, but had rejected the suspicious-looking bottles because they had no prints proving that the content was suitable for medical use. Instead of 90–95 % ethanol spirit the liquid in the bottles contained 36 % of methanol
Methanol
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical with the formula CH3OH . It is the simplest alcohol, and is a light, volatile, colorless, flammable liquid with a distinctive odor very similar to, but slightly sweeter than, ethanol...
, and four of the seven crew members involved in the party died as a result of methanol poisoning.
The 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
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. 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. She 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 be able to operate in open water without bottom slammingSlamming
Slamming is the impact of the bottom structure of a ship onto the sea surface. It is mainly observed while sailing in waves, when the bow raises from the water and subsequently impacts on it. Slamming induces extremely high loads to ship structures and is taken under consideration when designing...
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 (1 metres (3.3 ft)) in thickness with a snow layer of 0.2 metre (0.656167979002625 ft) in continuous motion without icebreaker assistance. The ships were also the first freighters in ten years to be built to the highest Soviet ice class notation available for merchant ships, ULA.
The ship had a maximum overall length of 177.2 metres (581.36 ft) or 173.55 metres (569.39 ft) with the stern notch excluded. The breadth of the ship, like all other cargo ships operating in the Northern Sea Route, was limited to 24.5 metres (80.38 ft) by the size of the escorting icebreakers. The shallow waters of the Northern Sea Route limited the draught to 9 metres (29.53 ft), but outside the arctic the cargo capacity of the ship could be increased by allowing the ice-strengthened parts of the hull to become submerged.
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
V14 engine
A V14 engine is a V engine with 14 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of seven cylinders. A relatively uncommon cylinder configuration, the V14 layout has been used on large medium-speed diesel engines used for power generation and marine propulsion.- Marine use :MAN B&W offers V14...
Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...
-Sulzer
Sulzer (manufacturer)
Sulzer Ltd. is a Swiss industrial engineering and manufacturing firm, founded by Salomon Sulzer-Bernet in 1775 and established as Sulzer Brothers Ltd. in 1834 in Winterthur, Switzerland. Today it is a publicly owned company with international subsidiaries...
14ZV40/48 4-stroke medium-speed diesel engines running on heavy fuel oil, each with a maximum continuous output of 7700 kW 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 clutch
Clutch
A clutch is a mechanical device which provides for the transmission of power from one component to another...
es and Voith
Voith
The Voith GmbH, which is headquartered in Germany, is a family-run corporation in the mechanical engineering sector with worldwide operations....
fluid coupling
Fluid coupling
A fluid coupling is a hydrodynamic device used to transmit rotating mechanical power. It has been used in automobile transmissions as an alternative to a mechanical clutch...
s. 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. Because the power output per shaft of the SA-15 class freighters was at that time one of the highest among icebreaking ships, second only to the Arktika class
Arktika class icebreaker
The Arktika class is a Russian class of nuclear powered icebreakers. They are owned by the federal government, but were operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company until 2008, when they were transferred to the fully government-owned operator Atomflot. Of the ten civilian nuclear powered vessels...
nuclear icebreakers, the propeller of the ship was of extremely robust design. The four-bladed stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
controllable pitch propeller
Controllable pitch propeller
A controllable pitch propeller or variable pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades that can be rotated around their long axis to change their pitch...
was developed and manufactured by KaMeWa specially for the SA-15 project.
A multipurpose general cargo ship, the vessel was capable of carrying a wide variety of cargo ranging from general and dry bulk cargoes to containers, heavy cargo, long goods and trailers. The ship had five holds fitted with tweendecks
Tweendecker
Tweendeckers are general cargo ships with two or sometimes three decks. The upper deck is called the main deck or weather deck, and the lower deck is the tweendeck. Cargo such as bales, bags, or drums can stacked in the tweendeck space, atop the tweendeck...
, four forwards and one abaft of the superstructure. The ship, designed to serve the remote arctic regions, was also equipped with flexible winterized
Winterization
Winterization refers to the process of preparing something for an upcoming winter.The term is most commonly used in respect to aquatic play features, fountains, and the like, which must be drained and sealed up so that water inside does not freeze, causing breakage of the pipes in the fountain, or...
cargo handling equipment for loading and unloading in undeveloped ports. For loading and unloading of general cargo, containers and bulk cargo the ship was geared with four deck cranes located on the centerline, one on the aft deck and three forwards of the superstructure. On the continuous tweendeck the ship could also carry roll-on/roll-off cargo which was loaded and unloaded via a stern quarter ramp that could also be lowered directly on ice.