The ship built in China will operate on the FESCO line linking the ports of China and Saint-Petersburg
On 6 March 2023, the port of Vladivostok welcomed new containership Kapitan Shchetinina built to the order of FESCO Transportation Group under its programme on expanding the fleet of Far Eastern Shipping Company PAO, says press center of the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency (Rosmorrechflot).
The solemn ceremony of welcoming the ship was held at Berth No 16 of Commercial Port of Vladivostok. It was attended the management of Far Eastern Shipping Company and its branch in Vladivostok, Deputy Chairman of the Primorsky Territory Government, Head of the city of Vladivostok, Chairman of the City Duma, Head of the RF Foreign Ministry’s Representative Office in Vladivostok, Representative of the Consulate General of China in Vladivostok and niece of А.Shchetinina.
Modern containership Kapitan Shchetinina has a length of 172 m, width of 32.2 m, deadweight – 31,100 tonnes, container capacity of 2,471 TEU, crew of 20 members. It is the first of the six ships to be built for FESCO in China this year in the framework of the Group’s fleet modernization programme. Having passed the procedures in Vladivostok, M/V Kapitan Shchetinina will start operating on the FESCO line linking the ports of China and Saint-Petersburg.
Kapitan Shchetinina is the only ship in the world named after the first woman to serve as a captain of an ocean-going vessel, Hero of Socialist Labor Anna Shchetinina.
Shchetinina was born in Vladivostok on 26 February 1908. In 1925 she entered the navigation department of the Vladivostok Marine School. After graduation she worked with a shipping company in Kamchatka Peninsula, where she started as an Ordinary Seaman, and rose to a captain. At the age of 24 she received her navigator's license and at 27 became the world's first female captain of an ocean-going ship. She attracted international attention on her first voyage as a captain in 1935, as a young woman in charge of MV Chavycha on its journey from Hamburg to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky via Odessa and Singapore.
She participated in World War II in the Baltic, where her ship was evacuating people from Tallinn and transporting war cargoes under enemy bombardment. Later during the war she was the master of a Liberty ship moving Lend-Lease supplies across the Pacific from the USA to Soviet Far Eastern ports.
After the War Ms. Shchetinina taught in the Leningrad Marine Engineering College; in 1951 she became a senior instructor there, and later, the Dean of the Institute's Navigation Department. In 1956 she was granted the title of docent. In 1960 she accepted the position of a docent (associate professor) at the Department of Sea Craft" at Vladivostok Marine Engineering and Navigation College.
Photos from FESCO’s Telegram
