MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2020) Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, the world's largest and most powerful vessel of its kind, has embarked on its maiden trip along the northern sea route, state shipping operator Atomflot said on Monday.
"On November 14, the leading universal nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika left the Murmansk port for its first working voyage. The vessel headed towards the Kara Sea," Atomflot, a subsidiary of nuclear corporation Rosatom, said in a statement.
The trip will last three weeks and sail through the Northern Sea Route along the Russian Arctic coast, the statement read.
"The first working voyage is a special event for the ship's crew and our entire enterprise," first deputy general-director at Rosatom, Leonid Irlitsa, said.
Irlitsa said that an active process of ice formation is currently underway in the arctic, which provides the perfect opportunity to test the vessel.
Arktika is scheduled to return to the home port in Murmansk in mid-December for refueling and crew change before setting sail again for "winter-spring navigation."
The 569-foot-long Arktika icebreaker of Project 22220 has a three-shaft propulsion system with a total capacity of 60 megawatts. Two other icebreakers that are part of the same project - Sibir and Ural - were designed for mass production.
Arktika-class nuclear icebreakers will be able to escort caravans of ships in Arctic conditions, breaking up to three meters of ice while accompanying vessels carrying hydrocarbon raw materials from the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas and the Kara Sea shelf to markets in the Asia-Pacific region.
