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 Monchegorsk (Мончегорск) was an 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...

 built by 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...

 in Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

, Finland

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...

, in 1983. Named after a town of the same name

Monchegorsk

Monchegorsk is a town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located on the Kola Peninsula, south of Murmansk, the administrative center of the oblast. Administratively, it is incorporated as Monchegorsk Town with Jurisdictional Territory—a unit of administrative division equal in status to that of a district...

, the freighter was the tenth 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 Wärtsilä and 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...

 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.

Initially delivered to the (then) state-owned Murmansk Shipping Company and later handed over to its subsidiary, NB Shipping, the Monchegorsk sailed under the Soviet and later 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 flag until 1993, after which she was registered to Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

. She was sold for recycling in China in late 2009 after 26 years of service.

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.

Career

The Monchegorsk was delivered by Wärtsilä in 1983 as the tenth ship of the series. While the ship belonged to the Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO), a state-owned shipping company that operated mainly in the western parts of the Soviet arctic, she was sent to the east shortly after delivery due to the particularly difficult ice conditions of the winter of 1983. After years of service in the arctic the ownership and management of the Monchegorsk was handed over to NB Shipping, a subsidiary of MSCO that operated a number of SA-15 class freighters, and moved to ice-free waters.

On 9 February 2006 the Monchegorsk collided with the Brunsbüttel

Brunsbüttel

Brunsbüttel is a town in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany that lies on the mouth of the Elbe river, near the North Sea. It is the location of the western entrance to the Kiel Canal, the eastern entrance being located at Kiel-Holtenau...

 locks in the Kiel Canal

Kiel Canal

The Kiel Canal , known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948, is a long canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.The canal links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula....

. The accident, caused by strong wind, happeed when the locks, closed because of very high tide, were reopened. No major damage to either the ship or the locks was reported.

Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion

In early 2009 the Monchegorsk became the centre of an international incident involving Iran, Russia, the US, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Cyprus. The ship was apprehended in the Red Sea by U.S. warships in Task Force 151 having left Iran. Following an on board search suspicious military material was reported and the ship was escorted to Limassol Port

Limassol Port

-Limassol New Port:Geographical Location: .Although a title held by Famagusta Port for centuries, Limassol Port has now become the principal seaport in Cyprus. This was largely a direct result of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 leaving the port of Famagusta within occupied territory and...

 on 29 January 2009.

The ship, registered with the Cyprus Merchant Marine

Cyprus Merchant Marine

Its geographical position at the crossroads of three continents and its proximity to the Suez canal has promoted merchant shipping as an important industry for the island nation of Cyprus...

 was then subject to an international diplomacy struggle as to the fate of its cargo. The US and Israel maintained that the cargo was in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 was a United Nations Security Council resolution that tightened the sanctions imposed on Iran in connection with the Iranian nuclear program...

 which sanctions Iranian arms exports. Israel claimed that the intended destination of the cargo was Palestinian organizations in the Gaza strip, a claim that Iran denied.

Cypriot authorities proceeded to a limited search of on board containers, the result of which was referred to the security council for clarification. Once the breach was confirmed the cargo was confiscated and unloaded onto the island where it was stored in warehouses of the Cypriot National Guard. The details of the contents from the 98 confiscated containers were not released to the public.

More than two years later, on July 11 2011, those same containers, stored in the open under clearly inappropriate conditions at the Evangelos Florakis Navy Base near Mari, exploded, leaving 13 people dead and 61 injured. The explosion created a 600-metre wide crater and caused the almost total destruction of the naval base and very severe damages to the nearby power station of Vasilikos. As a result of the damages sustained by the explosion, the Vasilikos power station, which accounted for more than half of all power production in Cyprus was disabled, causing a severe power shortage and rotating power cuts throughout the island. Since Cyprus gets much of its water from desalination plants, the power shortage also led to water shortage.

Decommissioning

The ship was sold for recycling in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 in late 2009 for US$316 per ton, resulting in a scrap price of US$3.4 million for a ship with a light displacement of 10,816 tons. In 2008 a double acting ship

Double acting ship

Double acting ship is a type of icebreaking merchant ship designed to run ahead in open water and astern in ice...

 operated by Norilsk Nickel was named Monchegorsk after the SA-15 class freighter that had once supported the Norilsk

Norilsk

Norilsk is an industrial city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located between the Yenisei River and the Taymyr Peninsula. Population: It was granted city status in 1953. It is the northernmost city in Siberia and the world's second largest city north of the Arctic Circle...

–Dudinka

Dudinka

Dudinka is a town and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It was the administrative center of Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, which was merged into Krasnoyarsk Krai on January 1, 2007. It is a port in the lower reaches of the Yenisei River,...

 operation.

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

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...

 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. These 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 place 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 allow 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 is 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.

Being 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.