Class notation:

DNV Det Norske Veritas Stiftelsen Det Norske Veritas is a classification society organized as a foundation, with the objective of "Safeguarding life, property, and the environment". The organization's history goes back to 1864, when the foundation was established in Norway to inspect and evaluate the technical condition...  1A1 POLAR-10 Icebreaker Tug Supply Vessel SF HELDK EPR E0 DYNPOS-AUTR

Main generators:

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...  16V32D (2 × 6,000 kW) 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...  12V32D (2 × 4,500 kW)

MSV Fennica is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 multipurpose icebreaker

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...

 and platform supply vessel

Platform supply vessel

A Platform supply vessel is a ship specially designed to supply offshore oil platforms. These ships range from 20 to 100 meters in length and accomplish a variety of tasks...

. Built in 1993 by Finnyards in Rauma, Finland

Rauma, Finland

Rauma is a town and municipality of ca. inhabitants on the west coast of Finland, north of Turku, and south of Pori. Granted town privileges on May 17, 1442 , Rauma is known of its high quality lace , and of the old wooden architecture of its centre , which is a Unesco world heritage...

 and operated by Arctia Offshore, she was the first Finnish icebreaker designed to be used as an escort icebreaker in the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 during the winter months and offshore

Offshore drilling

Offshore drilling refers to a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled through the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently produce hydrocarbons which lie in rock formations beneath the seabed...

 construction works during the open water season. The Fennica has an identical sister ship, Nordica, built in 1994.

General characteristics

The maximum overall length of the Fennica is 116 metres (380.6 ft) and her length between perpendiculars is 96.7 metres (317.3 ft). The hull has a moulded breadth of 26 metres (85.3 ft) and depth of 12.5 metres (41 ft). Her draught varies between 7 and 8.4 m (23 and 27.6 ft), being less in icebreaking operations than in offshore work. The gross tonnage

Gross tonnage

Gross tonnage is a unitless index related to a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage...

 of the Fennica is 9,088, net tonnage

Net tonnage

Net tonnage is a dimensionless index calculated from the total moulded volume of the ship's cargo spaces by using a mathematical formula...

 2,727 and deadweight tonnage

Deadweight tonnage

Deadweight tonnage is a measure of how much weight a ship is carrying or can safely carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, and crew...

 ranging between 1,650 and 4,800 tons depending on the draft. The ship weighs 7,935 tons and has a maximum displacement of 12,800 tons.

The Fennica is classified by Det Norske Veritas

Det Norske Veritas

Stiftelsen Det Norske Veritas is a classification society organized as a foundation, with the objective of "Safeguarding life, property, and the environment". The organization's history goes back to 1864, when the foundation was established in Norway to inspect and evaluate the technical condition...

 with a class notation 1A1 POLAR-10 Icebreaker Tug Supply Vessel SF HELDK EPR E0 DYNPOS-AUTR. Her ice class, POLAR-10, means that her hull is strengthened for unassisted operation in the Arctic, sub-Arctic and Antarctic regions, where the vessel can encounter winter ice with a nominal thickness of 1 metres (3.3 ft), pressure ridges, multi-year ice floes and glacial ice inclusions. The additional class notation "Icebreaker" states that she has no limitations for repeated ramming. To improve the maneuverability of the ship in ice her hull is wider at the bow than in the stern. These "reamers" increase the width of the ice channel and reduce friction between the hull and ice. In addition the forward part of the hull has explosion-welded

Explosion welding

Explosion welding is a solid state process where welding is accomplished by accelerating one of the components at extremely high velocity through the use of chemical explosives. This process is most commonly utilized to clad carbon steel plate with a thin layer of corrosion resistant material...

 stainless steel ice belt that reduces friction and protects the steel plates from abrasion.

For offshore construction projects the Fennica is equipped with a Hydralift crane capable of lifting 30 tons at a radius of 11 metres (36.1 ft) or 15 tons at 20 metres (65.6 ft). She also has a smaller MacGregor

Cargotec

Cargotec Oyj is a Finnish company that makes cargo-handling machinery for ships, ports, terminals and local distribution.Cargotec was formed in June 2005 when Kone Corporation was split into two companies to be listed: Cargotec and new KONE...

 crane capable of lifting 5 tons at 14 metres (45.9 ft) or 1.5 tons at 30 metres (98.4 ft). The vessel can also be equipped with a 120-ton A-frame

A-Frame

An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized beams, arranged in a 45-degree or greater angle, attached at the top...

 for trenching machines and ploughs. The Fennica has a helipad

Helipad

Helipad is a common abbreviation for helicopter landing pad, a landing area for helicopters. While helicopters are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard surface away from obstacles where a helicopter can safely...

 and a small hangar, and can accommodate 48 workers in addition to the ship's crew. Since the Fennica acts as an escort icebreaker during the winter season, she is also equipped with a Aquamaster-Rauma anchor handling and towing winch, and stern notch for assisting merchant ships. The oblique bridge maximizes visibility from the starboard side steering position.

Power and propulsion

The Fennica has a diesel-electric propulsion system with four main generators. She has two twelve-cylinder

V12 engine

A V12 engine is a V engine with 12 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of six cylinders, usually but not always at a 60° angle to each other, with all 12 pistons driving a common crankshaft....

 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...

 Vasa 12V32D and two sixteen-cylinder

V16 engine

A V16 engine is a V engine with 16 cylinders. Engines of this number of cylinders are uncommon in automotive use.A V16 engine is perfectly balanced regardless of the V angle without requiring counter-rotating balancing shafts which are necessary to balance Straight-4 and odd number of cylinder...

 16V32D four-stroke medium-speed diesel engines driving Strömberg

Stromberg

-People:*Lyndon Stromberg, American sculptor and designer*Karl Stromberg, the villain in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me*Joseph R. Stromberg, historian with the Ludwig von Mises Institute*Glenn Strömberg, Swedish soccer player...

 alternators, the former producing 4500 kW and the latter 6000 kW each. The main engines are also equipped with exhaust gas economizers. While underway, the fuel consumption of the main engines is 42 tons of heavy fuel oil or diesel per day at 13 knots (7.1 m/s) or 30 tons per day at 11 knots (6 m/s), giving the vessel an operating time of 45 to 67 days depending on the speed. During dynamic positioning operations the fuel consumption is 15 tons per day and the operating time depends on the distance and speed of transit to location.

While designed according to the power plant principle in which the main generators produce power for all shipboard consumers, the Fennica has one auxiliary diesel generator that can be used to produce electricity when the ship is at port. The four-cylinder Wärtsilä Vasa 4R22 4-stroke medium-speed diesel engine has an output of 710 kW at 1,000 rpm. In addition she has a twelve-cylinder Caterpillar

Caterpillar

Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

 3412 DISA emergency diesel generator with an output of 300 kW at 1,500 rpm.

The Fennica is propelled by two Aquamaster US ARC 1 Z-drive

Z-drive

A Z-drive is a type of marine propulsion unit. Specifically, it is an azimuth thruster. The pod can rotate 360 degrees allowing for rapid changes in thrust direction and thus vessel direction...

 azimuth thruster

Azimuth thruster

An azimuth thruster is a configuration of ship propellers placed in pods that can be rotated in any horizontal direction, making a rudder unnecessary...

s with 4.2 metres (13.8 ft) ducted

Ducted propeller

A ducted propeller is a propeller fitted with a non-rotating nozzle. It is used to improve the efficiency of the propeller and are especially used on heavily loaded propellers or propellers with limited diameter. It was developed by Luigi Stipa and Ludwig Kort .Advantages are increased efficiency,...

 fixed-pitch stainless steel propellers. The 177-ton thrusters, driven by ABB Strömberg AC/AC propulsion motors rated at 7,500 kW, considerably improve the maneuverability of the icebreaker. This is especially useful during escort and assistance operations in difficult ice conditions when the icebreaker has to operate at close proximity to other vessels at low speeds. When delivered, she was the first large icebreaker to be equipped with such propulsion system and her maneuverability was often described to be superior to older icebreakers with traditional shaftlines and rudders. Together with three 1,150 kW Brunvoll FU-80 LTC-2250 variable-pitch bow thruster

Bow thruster

A bow thruster is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, the bow of a ship or boat to make it more maneuverable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow the captain to turn the vessel to port or starboard without using the main propulsion mechanism which requires...

s the azimuth thrusters also allow dynamic positioning

Dynamic positioning

Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...

 during offshore operations.

The maximum speed of the Fennica is 16.5 knots (9 m/s) in open water and she can maintain a speed of 9.5 knots (5.2 m/s) on 80 centimetres (31.5 in) level ice. Her bollard pull

Bollard pull

Bollard pull is a value that allows the comparison of the pulling force of watercraft, particularly tugboats. A mooring bollard may be used as a point of attachment for measuring the force, or pull of the craft.-Background:...

 is 230 tons.

Development and construction

The development of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers began in the mid-1980s when the Finnish National Board of Navigation launched a project to find secondary uses for the new vessels it was planning to build as a replacement for some of the oldest icebreakers. Until then the Finnish icebreakers had been designed solely for escort operations in ice-infested waters and their specialized hull form was not suitable for open water. As a result the existing icebreakers had an effective operational time of only three to five months per year and spent the summer season moored at Katajanokka

Katajanokka

Katajanokka is a neighbourhood of Helsinki, Finland, with around 4000 inhabitants in 2005. The district is located adjacent to the immediate downtown area, though in the first major town plan for Helsinki from the mid-18th century, the area fell outside the fortifications planned to encircle the...

 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. A multipurpose application of the new icebreakers would thus result in a better utilization of the vessels and, assuming they were chartered by a commercial third party during the summer, improve the economics of the state-owned fleet.

However, the concept did not become reality until the early 1990s, when the Norwegian company Ugland Offshore AS (later DSND Offshore AS) became involved in the project to develop and construct multipurpose icebreakers that could be used for offshore operations in the oil field

Oil field

An oil field is a region with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum from below ground. Because the oil reservoirs typically extend over a large area, possibly several hundred kilometres across, full exploitation entails multiple wells scattered across the area...

s during the summer months. The concept was developed by the Board of Navigation together with a Finnish consulting engineering company ILS and the contract for the construction of the first vessel with an option for a sister ship was signed with Finnyards in October 1991. The second vessel was ordered in June 1992. The first Finnish multipurpose icebreaker, Fennica, was delivered in 1993 and her sister ship, Nordica, in the following year.

In 1997 a third multipurpose icebreaker was ordered from Finnyards. The ship, delivered in 1998 as Botnica, was slightly smaller than the previous Finnish multipurpose icebreakers and had several other differences, such as twelve Caterpillar

Caterpillar

Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

 high-speed diesel engines instead of medium-speed units and Azipod

Azipod

Azipod is the registered brand name of the ABB Group for their azimuth thruster. Originally developed in Finland jointly by Kvaerner Masa-Yards dockyards and ABB, these are marine propulsion units consisting of electrically driven propellers mounted on a steerable pod.The pod's propeller usually...

 electric azimuth thrusters instead of the ducted Z-drive Aquamasters. the Botnica remains the newest state-owned icebreaker of Finland.

Controversies

In the early 2000s the managing director Kyösti Vesterinen and several other high-ranking members of the Finnish Maritime Administration were caught in a bribery

Bribery

Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...

 scandal when it was found out that DSND Offshore, the charterer of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers, had offered them several private trips around the world. At the same time the offshore company, which had failed to make payments for the charters in time, was forgiven 153,000 euros of penalty interests. As a result Vesterinen and two other officials were found guilty for corruption and as a result lost their positions, were given suspended sentence

Suspended sentence

A suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge's delaying of a defendant's serving of a sentence after they have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation...

s of four to ten months and had to pay back the unlawfully obtained benefits. The incident ended the co-operation between DSND and the Finnish Maritime Administration and left many people suspicious about the profitability of the multipurpose icebreakers.

Criticism

The state-owned shipping company Arctia Shipping Oy and its predecessors have been heavily criticized over the years for the financial losses from the offshore business. Due to design compromises the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers are unable to compete with purpose-built platform supply vessel

Platform supply vessel

A Platform supply vessel is a ship specially designed to supply offshore oil platforms. These ships range from 20 to 100 meters in length and accomplish a variety of tasks...

s — the open-water performance of the spoon-shaped bow is very poor due to slamming

Slamming

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...

. As a result the ships have been left without contracts and have spent long periods of time in foreign ports even during the Finnish winter navigation season, forcing the Finnish Government to hire icebreakers from the commercial market to keep the ports open. However, according to an internal memorandum of the Finnish Maritime Administration the offshore business, while not profitable, has covered at least some of the expenses from icebreaking during the winter seasons in the late 1990s, resulting in lower overall operating costs for the multipurpose icebreakers than for traditional icebreakers.

The Finnish multipurpose icebreakers have also been criticized for their lower icebreaking capability when compared to traditional icebreakers from the 1970s and 1980s despite the advantages of the azimuth thrusters. The Aquamaster thrusters also require considerably more maintenance and the ducted propellers suffer from clogging when the icebreaker is operating in brash ice channels.