VESSEL REVIEW | Uzon – New fleet of five emergency response tugs for Russian Marine Rescue Service
Russia's Okskaya Shipyard has completed construction of five new tugs ordered by the Russian Marine Rescue Service. Designed by local naval architecture firm Nordic Engineering, sister vessels Pechak, Timan, Tepsey, Uzon, and Tabor belong to the Project NE025 series of multi-role tugs that will perform a range of duties including towing of non-self-propelled pontoons, salvage, installation and maintenance of buoys, anchor handling, maritime safety patrols, cargo transport, dredging support, oil spill response, and firefighting.
Enhanced ice navigation capability
Each tug has an LOA of 29 metres (95 feet), a beam of 9.4 metres (31 feet), a summer draught of 3.2 metres (10 feet), a moulded depth of 4.2 metres (14 feet) amidships, and a displacement of 482 tonnes at maximum draught. Two 746kW (1,000hp) diesel engines will deliver a bollard pull of greater than 25 tonnes.
Each tug is laid out with the engine room placed amidships on the main deck, an open aft deck, and a superstructure with two decks. Accommodation is available for up to eight crewmembers.
In the summer and autumn months, the tugs can independently navigate through thin first-year Arctic ice up to 80 cm (30 inches) thick, In the winter-spring period, they can navigate through ice up to 60 cm (20 inches) thick. In finer ice conditions of freezing non-Arctic seas, the vessels can be operated year-round.
The tugs are also capable of deploying oil spill response equipment even without their hulls coming into contact with spilled oil on the surface of the water, thus ensuring greater safety for their crews. For firefighting, each tug relies on a main engine-driven pump and two Runitor foam/water monitors that can be controlled remotely from the wheelhouse via joystick and touchscreen controls. The monitors have a maximum discharge distance of 100 metres (330 feet) and discharge rates of 500 cubic metres (18,000 cubic feet) per hour and 300 cubic metres (11,000 cubic feet) per hour for water and foam, respectively.
Built to support shipping through the Northern Sea Route
The vessels are also equipped with automated wastewater treatment plants. Each plant consists of a purification tank with a coarse particle filtration screen, a pumping system, a three-way valve, and an electrical cabinet. To treat water laden with bacteria, each plant uses oxygen and chlorine to quickly oxidise organic substances.
Design work on the Project NE025 tugs was done in compliance with Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) rules including Arc4 ice class requirements. The vessels’ construction is within the framework of the Northern Sea Route infrastructure development plan for the period up to 2035.
The five Project NE025 tugs will be deployed at ports that lie along the Northern Sea Route, providing assistance to commercial vessels that sail through the vital route. Under the current arrangement, two of the tugs will be operated out of the port of Murmansk, another two will serve the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and the fifth unit will be deployed at the port of Arkhangelsk.
