Nuclear-powered icebreaker Leader to be built by Zvezda - Iceberg Design Bureau

The construction of nuclear-powered icebreaker Leader which is under design engineering is to be awarded to Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex in the Primorsky territory, IAA PortNews correspondent cites Aleksandr Ryzhkov, Director General of Iceberg Design Bureau, as saying at the International Far East Maritime Show in Vladivistok.

According to the expert, the Leader icebreaker is a unique project in many respects. The main feature of the ship is the ability to sail at commercially efficient speed of 12-13 knots round-the-year according to schedule, in conventional/high/polar latitudes, breaking through ice of over 2 meters thick (maximum thickness – 4.3 meters). The design model has been successfully tested at the Krylov State Research Centre. The icebreaker’s hull will be 210 meters long and 47 meters wide with the draft between 11.5 and 13 meters. The ship will be equipped with two reactors designed by Afrikantov Experimental Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering (Nizhny Novgorod), four 60 MW turbines and four electric propulsion motors. 

According to the head of the only designer of nuclear-powered icebreakers, new vessels should be built amid the economically justified necessity to develop commercial shipping in the Arctic zone. As of today, the country’s fleet of icebreakers numbers four vessels, the resource of which expires in four years. The demand for new fleet determines the increase of orders for design and construction of new vessels. The expert thinks that Baltiysky Zavod shipyard will secure an order for construction of four more vessels when a series of three icebreakers is completed.