#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The crew of the icebreaker belonging to the Polar Transport Branch (part of the Norilsk Nickel structure) helped rescue a convoy of seven ships of the Siberia-RechTrans transport company, trapped in the Yenisey river ice in the Igarka area.
As a reminder, on October 26, seven ships of Sibir-RechTrans left the port of Dudinka for Krasnoyarsk. The next day, the company’s management asked the Polar Transport Branch for assistance in icebreaker escort of the convoy because of the difficult ice situation on the Yenisey. The PTB responded immediately, the icebreaker was prepared in record time – in just half a day.
“It all started as usual pilotage of ships, nothing foreshadowed difficulties: we picked up five ships in Igarka and two more ships on the way, all lined up in a wake and went”, the captain of the icebreaker Mikhail Gutko recalls. “We sailed a little higher than Ermakovo, and then a block of broken ice about five kilometers in length, along the entire width of the river and deep down to the bottom, approached to us. And at that moment it changed from ice escorting into a rescue operation”.
According to the information of the Dudinka seaport, four vessels were pulled out – two barges with empty containers and two tugs. Three ships without crews remained in the ice. They will be towed in the spring during the ice drift.
For the well-coordinated work in escorting the Sibir-RechTrans ships, the Avraamy Zavenyagin crew was awarded letters of thanks from the Polar Transport Branch director. There were 15 people of the crew on board who ensured the success of the rescue operation.
“As a commander, I take off my hat to the crew. All worked as one”, said the captain of the only icebreaker on the Yenisey.
“A part of the working group controlling and coordinating all the actions from the shore was also involved in the rescue of the ships; all forces were mobilized for such an atypical mission for the Polar Transport Branch”, reads a message on the PTB’s Instagram page.
Text: Tatiana Ermolaeva, Photo: instagram.com/dudinka_seaport
