The drama around the research vessel “Akademik Nikolai Strakhov” stranded in the Kara Sea has been developing for the second week already . In the first days, the situation was really dangerous, but now there is no immediate threat to the lives of the crew members. T-invariant describes the broad context of the problem, describing what role in the emergency may be played by Mikhail Kovalchuk, who tried in the summer to take the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which manages scientific vessels, into the structure of his Kurchatov Centre, and how systemic the dysfunctional situation with the Russian research fleet is.
Accident
It all started on the night of 5-6 September, when the research vessel “Akademik Nikolai Strakhov”, moving in the Kara Sea, bypassing the huge uninhabited island of Bely, suddenly lost speed. The cause was a failure in one of the eight cylinders of the main diesel engine. The vessel dropped anchor, the depth was relatively shallow – 20-30 metres, and the crew began to deal with the problem. The very next day it became clear that it was impossible to carry out the repair on their own. This was reported to the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, under the programme of which the ship was working. The possibility of delivery of spare parts and repair crew or, on the contrary, towing the ship to the port was discussed. But as it was Friday, it was not possible to make a decision, and the issue was postponed until Monday.
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Meanwhile, the Kara Sea is the coldest among the Arctic seas, and although there is no ice in it now, the weather here is quite variable. At the weekend the wind became stronger and turned into a gale, reaching 30 metres per second. Waves were up to five metres (some crew members even speak of eight metres). In such conditions the anchor could not hold the vessel in place and it began to drift at a speed of up to three miles per hour. At the same time the roll reached 40° at times. In more than a day the ship dragged the anchor for almost 30 miles. A smaller figure was mentioned in the press, but the goradar.ruwebsite shows that the ship drifted about 40 kilometres before reattaching itself. As the expedition members discuss in Telegram, they were lucky with the wind direction: if it had turned 15°, they would have been swept ashore. No action was taken over the weekend to rescue the vessel and crew.
Movement of the R/V “Akademik Nikolai Strakhov” and “Akademik Mstislav Keldysh” during the period from 5 to 16 September to the data of goradar.ru website. Click to enlarge
In Telegram correspondence, the motive is that administrators in warm offices do not understand what it is like to hang out in a storm on an immobilised ship in the middle of the polar sea. In 2007, as a journalist, the author had the opportunity to cross the Barents Sea aboard the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh during a moderate storm. The ship was in good order, but many people could hardly stand on their feet from the rocking and were lying down in their cabins. And although the roll then hardly exceeded 15-20° and things from the tables, as a rule, did not fall, going out on the open deck was out of the question. And now let’s compare: “Strakhov” is half the size of “Keldysh”, the roll is up to 40°, the engine is standing, and all hope is on the anchor.
the 43rd expedition of the R/V “Akademik Nikolai Strakhov”. Photo: https://atlantic.ocean.ru
Waiting
When the winds stabilised the situation, the Institute of Oceanology officially reported that “the health and lives of the crew on board are not threatened”, that the scientists were still working and “a plan to eliminate the breakage has already been developed”. However, in reality, the crew was constantly informed of new action plans, which were soon cancelled or revised.
Convinced that repairs on the high seas were impossible, even if equipment and specialists were brought in, the Institute of Oceanology decided to evacuate the scientific staff and most of the crew, using its other research vessel, the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which was conducting research off the southern part of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, just over a day’s journey from the stricken Strakhov. At the same time it was announced that on 12 September the Institute had chartered a tugboat, which would arrive at the stranded vessel on 17 September and take it to the port of Arkhangelsk.
However, the map of the same goradar.ru shows that “Keldysh”, which during the storm was sheltered in one of the narrow bays of Yuzhny Island, from 9 September started systematic scanning of a certain area of the seabed and… continued it until 15 September. Only in the afternoon of 15 September the “Keldysh” started its course to Bely Island. The crew of “Strakhov” was told to prepare for evacuation on 16 September.
But only on the night of the 16th, the Keldysh suddenly changed course and headed for the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya at full speed. In discussions in Telegram it was mentioned that although the “Keldysh” is managed by the Institute of Oceanology, on this voyage it is working on a programme of the Kurchatov Institute, which apparently turned out to be more important than the evacuation of the crew, which “is not threatened by anything”.
The tugboat also had a problem: it did not set off on the 12th. Later, the institute reported in its official Telegram channel that the contractor had cancelled the towing contract “without explanation”. In informal discussions, it was mentioned that the institute needed to hold a tender to charter the tug. It is difficult to understand whether this is really true or local humour, but the official information has changed: the evacuation and towing to Murmansk has been undertaken by Morspassluzhba, to which the institute has provided payment guarantees. The tugboat is expected to arrive on 18-19 September. Since the name of the vessel is not reported, it is impossible to trace its movement.
The vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. Photo by the author
Such is the disposition for today. But in order to properly assess this whole situation, it is necessary to look at it in a broader context.
Background
And we should start with the question of how it happened that the ship, which had recently left the port, suddenly encountered a failure of the main engine. Just before departure it was to be checked by both the Institute of Oceanology and the Russian Maritime Register. It turns out that Strakhov had engine problems on its previous voyage to the Atlantic Ocean, from which it had returned a month earlier. The participants of that expedition mentioned that only thanks to the heroic efforts of the mechanics the ship was able to reach the port on its own.
The need for an engine overhaul had been on the agenda since at least 2022. At that time, there were three tenders for the Strakhov repair: for 330, 430 and 750 million roubles. The first two were realised, they repaired electronics, winches and other equipment. But the last one, which apparently included engine repairs, did not materialise. If this is indeed the case, then the current accident is a natural consequence. It is difficult to judge the reasons for this development of events. The institute’s management in its statements complains about the chronic underfunding of the Russian scientific fleet by the state. At the same time, some scientists believe that the allocated funds are spent inefficiently. But most likely, there is a case of both. Another episode from the history of the Akademik Nikolai Strakhov, which took place ten years earlier, makes us think so .
In August 2013, due to a propeller failure during an expedition to the Indian Ocean, the Strakhov was forced to stop for repairs in the port of Colombo (Sri Lanka). However, the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences had no money not only for repairs, but even for port maintenance of the ship. A year and a half later, the debt grew so high that the ship was disconnected from shore power supply, food was no longer supplied to the ship, the crew was forbidden to go ashore and the question of confiscation and sale of the ship arose. The situation became an international scandal that had to be resolved at the level of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government. Only then were funds found to repay the debt and pay for repairs.
After that, the vessel was taken away from the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and transferred to the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Obviously, the calculation was that the concentration of the research fleet in the same hands would improve the quality of management. At the same time, the research fleet of the Institute of Oceanology received the status of a resource centre of collective use. This, by the way, is why the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh is now working not under the programme of the Institute of Oceanology, but under the programme of the Kurchatov Institute, which is not even part of the RAS structure.
At first glance, such concentration looks reasonable. But it is important to remember that by 2015 the Russian Academy of Sciences and its institutes had already largely lost their independence after the 2013 reform. They ceased to own their property and remained only in the role of operational managers. The owner of the entire academic economy became a state scientific department (whose name changed along the way). It alone, and not the institute or the RAS, depends on the allocation of funds necessary for the normal operation of the scientific fleet.
the 43rd expedition of the R/V “Akademik Nikolai Strakhov”. Photo: https://atlantic.ocean.ru
Guesses
And here one cannot help but think about the role that the Kurchatov Centre may play in this whole situation. It is known that this scientific conglomerate, headed by Mikhail Kovalchuk, is actively trying to squeeze the weakening RAS and claims the resources under its management. In particular, this summer the Kurchatov Institute proposed that the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences be reassigned to it. This attempt was unanimously opposed by the Scientific Council of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the attack has so far been repelled.
However, judging by the fact that this summer the Kurchatov Institute is intensively using the “Akademik Mstislav Keldysh”, the flagship of the scientific fleet of the Institute of Oceanology, we can assume that it is the scientific fleet together with the funds due for its operation is the real goal of the operation.
Then it becomes clear why now subordinate to the Kurchatov Centre “Keldysh” in the end did not come to the aid of “Strakhov”. After all, if “Keldysh” under Kurchatnik’s control brilliantly performs the scientific programme, while the work of “Strakhov” under the control of the Institute of Oceanology will fail, it will be a strong hardware argument in favour of handing over the management of the scientific fleet to a more successful organisation.
And references to the fact that the Strakhov accident was a direct consequence of its underfunding will sound like weak excuses, given that the Institute’s management had no prepared plan for emergency situations. Moreover, the scientific crew of the vessel was not fully staffed: instead of 25 scientists who could work on board, only 12 went on the Strakhov expedition (however, this may also be due to underfunding).
Context
The Soviet Union once had a much more extensive research fleet of dozens of vessels. A special list included ships to support space research (maritime space fleet), which, of course, were very close to military ones. However, after the collapse of the USSR, it turned out that it was profitable to carry cargo, fish, and in extreme cases entertain tourists at sea, while scientific research was a loss. Therefore, a significant number of scientific vessels were utilised. This fate befell almost all the vessels of the space programme, which did not serve even 30 years, especially since many of them went to Ukraine, which needed them even less than Russia. The remaining vessels of the Russian scientific fleet often did not serve their intended purpose, grew old, and their maintenance became more and more burdensome.
But just now, when the “shares” of the scientific fleet inherited from the USSR are practically devalued, it can be very profitable to take possession of it. Not everyone has noticed that in the last decade Russia has launched a number of new projects of research vessels. They are necessary both for offshore exploration of mineral resources, as it is no longer possible to rely on foreign technologies, and for military research. Among the already built vessels are the Akademik Tryoshnikov, which was delivered to the Russian Antarctic Expedition in 2012, and the Akademik Aleksandrov, which will be built for the Defence Ministry’s Deep Sea Research Directorate in 2020. A number of other vessels are under construction: the “Akademik V.I. Ilyichev” and “Akademik Aleksandr Lisitsyn” commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science (expected to be ready by 2025), the “Professor Anatoly Elizarov” and “Professor Pyotr Moiseyev” for the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (2026), and the “Ivan Frolov” for Roshydromet (2028).
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This is not the place for a Homeric list of ships, especially since many construction reports are unreliable, and the construction of some ships has been postponed more than once for various reasons, including sanctions forcing changes to already launched projects. The main thing is that the work on renewal of the Russian research fleet is underway, this fleet, at least in part, will also have a military purpose, which means that there will be long-term financing. Against such a background, it would be a natural move for any specialised administrator to seek to take over some of this resource. This is worth keeping in mind when considering the situation around the Kurchatov Centre and the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which received an unexpected spotlight because of the accident of the Akademik Nikolai Strakhov.
UPD. The name of the rescue vessel that left Murmansk to help the “Akademik Strakhov” in the evening of 15 September has become known. It is the Murman multifunctional salvage vessel , which participated in the completion of Nord Stream-2. At the current speed it can be expected to arrive at the target in 10-12 hours (in the morning of 19.09). Here is the scheme of its movement.
Text: Alexander Sergeyev
Alexander Sergeev 18.09.2024