''Magadan'' () is a Russian

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

and the second vessel in a series of three

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of hemiboreal regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Fennoscandia, Northwestern Russia, Siberia, and the Cair ...

icebreakers built at

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish corporation, Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the Marine propulsion, marine and energy markets. The core ...

Helsinki shipyard in Finland in 1982–1983. The vessel's sister ships are ''Mudyug'' (rebuilt in 1986) and ''Dikson''.

Design

''Magadan''s hull is

long overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also u ...

and has a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

of at its widest point. However, the towing notch increases the extreme length of the vessel to while the inclined sides reduce the hull width to at the design waterline. When loaded to the maximum draught of , the icebreaker has a

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

of . The vessel's

ice class Ice class refers to a notation assigned by a classification society or a national authority to denote the additional level of strengthening as well as other arrangements that enable a ship to navigate through sea ice. Some ice classes also have ...

, LL4, is intended for icebreaking operations primarily in ports and coastal areas. The maximum thickness of the shell plating in the bow region is . Unlike most icebreakers, ''Magadan'' has a diesel-mechanical propulsion system where the vessel's four

8-cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

8R32 medium-speed main engines are coupled in pairs through Lohmann & Stolterfoht Navilus twin-input/single-output single-stage reduction gearboxes to propeller shafts driving four-bladed stainless steel KaMeWa

controllable pitch propeller Controllability is an important property of a control system and plays a crucial role in many regulation problems, such as the stabilization of unstable systems using feedback, tracking problems, obtaining optimal control strategies, or, simply p ...

s. In order to protect the main engines from large torque variations during icebreaking operations and to prevent the propellers from stopping when the blades come in contact with ice, each shaft has a

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, a ...

to increase

rotational inertia The moment of inertia, otherwise known as the mass moment of inertia, angular/rotational mass, second moment of mass, or most accurately, rotational inertia, of a rigid body is defined relatively to a rotational axis. It is the ratio between ...

of the drivetrain. The vessel's icebreaking capability is further increased by a Wärtsilä Air Bubbling System (WABS) lubricating the hull as well as an active heeling system. Onboard electrical power is generated by three Wärtsilä-Vasa 624TS auxiliary diesel engines with 960 kVA alternators. ''Magadan''s

bollard pull Bollard pull is a conventional measure of the pulling (or towing) power of a watercraft. It is defined as the force (usually in tonnes-force or kilonewtons (kN)) exerted by a vessel under full power, on a shore-mounted bollard through a tow-line, ...

is when operating with a continuous propulsion power of . However, for short-term operation the icebreaker can use its maximum shaft output of to generate a bollard pull of . The vessel has a service speed of in open water and maintain a continuous speed of when breaking thick level ice.

History

Development and construction

In 1977, Wärtsilä began developing a new

concept in close co-operation with experts from the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Although the Finnish shipbuilder had delivered more icebreaking vessels than any other shipyard in the world, they had all been diesel-electric vessels where

diesel generator A diesel generator (DG) (also known as a diesel genset) is the combination of a diesel engine with an electric generator (often an alternator) to generate electrical energy. This is a specific case of an engine generator. A diesel compress ...

s powered electric propulsion motors driving fixed-pitch propellers. In the new icebreakers, this fairly expensive specialized drivetrain would be replaced with cheaper and more efficient mechanical transmission where the main diesel engines would be connected to

s through a reduction gearbox. An extensive research program was initiated by Wärtsilä Arctic Design and Marketing (WADAM) to ensure that the new concept was viable and that the problems encountered the recently commissioned

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

Polar-class icebreaker Polar-class icebreakers , are heavy icebreakers operated by the United States Coast Guard (USCG). These cutters, specifically designed for icebreaking, have reinforced hulls, special icebreaking bows, and a system that allows rapid shifting of ...

s would be avoided. In April 1980, Wärtsilä and the Soviet Union signed a

FIM FIM may refer to: Organizations and companies * Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, the International Motorcycling Federation * Flint Institute of Music, in Michigan, United States * Fox Interactive Media, now News Corp. Digital Media * ...

400 million shipbuilding contract for the construction of three icebreakers to escort ships in the freezing

ports. The vessels, first of which would be delivered in late 1982 and the two following ones in 1983, would be stationed in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

and

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. ''Magadan'', the second icebreaker of the series, was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...

Hietalahti shipyard Hietalahti shipyard (also known as Helsinki New Shipyard, ) is a shipyard in Hietalahti, in downtown Helsinki, Finland. Since 2019, it has been operated by a company named Helsinki Shipyard. History The shipyard, first known as Helsingfors ...

together with the final vessel, ''Dikson'', on 6 January 1981 and launched at the same time with the

lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships that are all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very comple ...

, ''Mudyug'', on 16 April 1982. The icebreaker was delivered on 30 December 1982 slightly ahead of schedule.

Career

''Magadan'' was delivered to the

Far East Shipping Company FESCO Transportation Group () is an intermodal transport operator in Russia, which provides services, including marine shipping, roll-on/roll-off, rail transportation and port handling. The parent company of the Group is Far-Eastern Shipping Co ...

(FESCO) in 1982 and since been operating in the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

where the icebreaker escorts ships to its namesake city in the

during the winter months. In 2016, ''Magadan'' was transferred to Rosmorport and remains in service .

Notable events

''Magadan'' was one of the numerous icebreakers involved in the shipping crisis in the Soviet Eastern Arctic where unprecedented ice conditions caused a major disturbance to shipping at the end of the 1983 navigating season. In March 1999, ''Magadan'' led a rescue effort to escort vessels carrying supplies to isolated

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

settlements that were dangerously short of fuel. In 2000, ''Magadan'' was used to tow decommissioned

Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

warships for

scrapping Scrap consists of Recycling, recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have Waste valorization, mone ...

Alang Alang is a census town in Bhavnagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Because it is home to the Alang Ship Breaking Yard, Alang beaches are considered the world's largest ship graveyard. Demographics As of the 2001 Indian census, Al ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. In August 2003, ''Magadan'' participated in a joint Russian-Japanese-Korean rescue exercise in the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

. The icebreaker's role in the Vostok-2003 exercise was to act as a target ship that reported a simulated fire onboard the vessel. In March–April 2006, ''Magadan'' was chartered to a joint Russian-American expedition to survey

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped marine mammal with discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the only extant species in the family Odobeni ...

abundance near the

Saint Lawrence Island St. Lawrence Island (, ) is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait. The village of Gambell, Alaska, Gambell, located on the northwest cape of the island, is from the Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far ...

. On 18 December 2011, ''Magadan'' was one of the two vessels towing the

jackup rig A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit ...

'' Kolskaya'' that capsized and sank in the Sea of Okhotsk with 53 persons declared dead or missing following the accident.

References

{{reflist Icebreakers of Russia Icebreakers of the Soviet Union Ships built in Helsinki 1982 ships