Arctic Icebreaker Campaign to the North Pole of 1977

The nuclear icebreaker Arktika is the lead ship of the project series 10520. The project was the second project of the atomic icebreaker: the first was the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin . The project was created for the development of the Arctic seas, the operator of the nuclear icebreaker fleet was the Murmansk Shipping Company.

The icebreaker was laid down on July 3, 1971 at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad. Launching on December 26, 1972 . End of sea trials - December 17, 1974 . Commissioning and hoisting the national flag on the icebreaker - April 25, 1975 .

Experienced ice captain Yu. S. Kuchiev , captain of the icebreaker Lenin, was appointed the first captain of the nuclear-powered ship in 1971. In 1974-1977, the icebreaker completed a number of voyages along the Northern Sea Route and was ready for a difficult trip.

The decision to go to the pole was made on July 13, 1977, when the Minister of the Navy of the USSR, T. B. Guzhenko, signed a plan of organizational and technical measures to prepare the flight. Its preparation took place in the Murmansk Shipping Company , it was entrusted to the head of the shipping company V.I. Ignatyuk and the head of the administration of the Northern Sea Route K.N. Chubakov . The Minister of the Navy of the USSR T. B. Guzhenko became the head of the voyage , K. N. Chubakov - his deputy ^[1] .

Developing a route for this trip for polar ice researchers was a new challenge. According to the captain of the vessel, Yuri Kuchiev, swimming in such ice is a very risky event. The most critical may be the breakdown of the propeller shaft cone , this can lead to the loss of a screw . The result of such a breakdown will be a decrease in the power of the icebreaker by one third. Therefore, the route was laid using data from long-term observations of the behavior of ice fields. These data were prepared in the summer of 1977 by AANII employee I.P. Romanov , who has been studying ice since the 1950s ^[2] .

The crew of the vessel (about 150 sailors) for the expedition was strengthened by scientific and technical experts, in this voyage there were 207 people on board the vessel ^[1] . The expedition was attended by employees of institutes and enterprises:

• Central Research Institute named after A.N. Krylov , the group's task was to study the operation of propellers under extreme loads.
• Institute of Atomic Energy named after I.V. Kurchatov , who controlled the operation of the entire power plant of the vessel.
• Riga Institute of Civil Aviation , which developed a special device for the flight, which remotely determined the thickness of the ice cover.
• 10 AARI employees, led by the famous polar explorer I.P. Romanov . This team carried out a comprehensive program:
  • Scientific and operational support for the campaign, compilation of meteorological and ice forecasts;
  • The study of the patency of the icebreaker in various ice conditions;
  • Investigation of the mechanism of interaction of the icebreaker hull with ice.

To ensure the campaign on the shore, two special units were created:

• a group of the headquarters of maritime operations at the Dickson Hydrometeorological Service ;
• group of the headquarters of maritime operations in the AARI (Leningrad).

The interaction of these three units allowed all the time of the trip to have versatile information on the icebreaker about the existing and expected ice conditions, meteorological conditions at the icebreaker's course, daily weather forecasts were created. AARI subgroup flew on ice reconnaissance on an MI-2 on-board helicopter, choosing the optimal path in difficult areas. Another subgroup investigated the behavior of the icebreaker hull during its active interaction with ice in various operating modes. These specialists worked in the hold spaces of the vessel.

Due to the complexity of the task set by the expedition organizers, a number of security measures were taken:

• An emergency food supply of eight months was taken aboard.
• The ship was equipped with materials for the construction of an ice airfield .

According to the operators, the openwork screws with a diameter of 5.7 meters did not look credible. Despite this, the ship's propellers worked fine.

The campaign was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution . During the trip, the icebreaker covered 3852 nautical miles, including 1200 miles with overcoming long-term ice ^[1] .

To the pole

On August 9, 1977, the minister arrived aboard the ship, and the Arctic left the port of Murmansk .

The result of the initial calculations of the ice situation was the direction from Murmansk to the north in a straight line. During the voyage, polar explorer V. N. Kupetsky insisted on a change of direction, indicating that the ice in the direction from the Kara Sea to the North Pole is less strong, and you should go to storm the pole in this direction. He was supported by polar captains and representatives of the AARI (first of all, I.P. Romanov) and the new route was approved.

Since long-term Siberian ice drifts from the shores of the Novosibirsk islands through the pole to the shores of Greenland , two circumstances appear:

• The ice thickness increases as the ice ages near, this allows the icebreaker to go well for most of the way, and the decrease in speed due to the increase in ice thickness gradually appears closer to the pole.
• Due to the associated drift, the drift speed was added to the speed of the icebreaker. The increase was insignificant, for those seven days when the icebreaker went to the pole, due to the associated drift, the increase was about 20-25 miles ^[2] .

The icebreaker followed through the Kara Sea to the Laptev Sea , passing the Vilkitsky Strait . Having reached the 130th meridian , the expedition turned north and adhered to this direction until reaching the North Pole. In fact, the vessel followed a gentle arc between 125 and 130 degrees east longitude ^[1] .

Since August 14, the icebreaker entered the perennial ice, overcoming the ice cover began :

We encountered separate accumulations of perennial ice while sailing on the "Lenin" and the "Arctic" before this campaign, but ice fields several meters thick - we did not have to overcome such ...

- captain of the vessel Yu. S. Kuchiev

.

The captain of the icebreaker in this part of the voyage constantly used ice reconnaissance data and, if possible, circumvented the most powerful ice barriers. Despite this, the icebreaker repeatedly had to experience difficulties. The flight director Timofey Guzhenko later called this part of the campaign a “ stone crusher ” , since in these ices the Arctic went “moving forward with strikes: back and forth, back and forth” .

On August 16, 1977, while passing a section in the area of ​​the 88–89th latitude, when visibility deteriorated, the icebreaker met a field of heavy pack ice , which was torn off from the Canadian massif. When overcoming this bridge of heavy ice, the icebreaker jammed twice ^[2] .

At the Pole

It was politically important to get to the exact point of the pole, which was not an easy task for the navigational instruments of the time. This task was successfully completed by the ship’s service in collaboration with the AARI specialist I.P. Romanov , who had already been to the top of the world many tens of times. At the end of the voyage, Ilya Pavlovich Romanov was awarded the Order of Lenin ^[3] .

On August 17, 1977, at 4 a.m. Moscow time, the nuclear icebreaker for the first time in the world reached the geographic point of the North Pole in active sailing. The first to go down on the ice were the senior foreman of the nuclear steam production plant, Fidus Askhadullin, and master repairman A. A. Spring. They mounted a 10-meter steel rod on the ice to raise the flag.

After that, the main gangway was lowered from the ship and at 9 hours 40 minutes Moscow time at the North Pole the flag of the Soviet Union was hoisted. Captain Yuri Kuchiev attached to the flagpole a pole from the flag of the expedition of George Sedov . Sedov's expedition could not reach the North Pole, having traveled about 100 kilometers from several thousand.

As in many other expeditions to the pole, the expedition trodden on a “round-the-world route”: a circle with a diameter of about 40 meters, along which all meridians could be crossed in a short time.

Senior technician Rafik Bulatov made a souvenir postage stamp from a piece of rubber with the inscription: “North Pole. Nuclear-powered icebreaker "Arctic" August 17, 1977. " Envelopes, postcards and photographs were stamped with this stamp. The stamp was placed on approximately 100-120 envelopes and postcards.

Return

The "Arctic" spent 15 hours on top of the world, during which time the expedition's research staff carried out the planned studies and observations. The parking allowed the divers to check the condition of the screws of the icebreaker, after a positive conclusion, the icebreaker was ready to set off on the return trip to Murmansk.

The last event before leaving the North Pole was the abandonment of a special memorial sign in this place. It included:

• Commemorative metal plate on which the State Emblem of the USSR was engraved
• Capsule with the draft constitution of the USSR and the text of the anthem , as well as a souvenir stamp of the campaign.

An exact copy of the capsule is in the collections of the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic .

The return route was laid in a straight line towards Murmansk. Just like the road to the pole, the path from the pole was laid in an arc bypassing Franz Josef Land between 55 and 40 degrees east longitude ^[1] .

In this part of the route, the possibility of operating icebreakers in high latitudes was investigated. The interest in this issue was explained by the fact that there is the possibility of high-latitude ice piloting: the high-latitude route between Murmansk and the Bering Strait is about a third shorter than the length of the Northern Sea Route .

Due to the increased complexity of the ice, requirements for meteorologists increased, the AANII group continued to actively carry out work related to plotting the ship's course.

As a result of the expedition, the possibility of year-round navigation along the shortest routes of the Arctic Ocean, as well as the possibility of transit passage of the Northern Sea Route was practically proved.

Research

During the expedition, representatives of AANII collected unique data on the behavior of the icebreaker hull when interacting with ice in different operating modes. These data were processed shortly after the return of specialists to Leningrad. As a result of the analysis of the materials obtained, progress was achieved in a number of research areas: the main results were new methods for strength calculations of icebreaker hulls and transport vessels. In addition, important data were obtained on the behavior of the icebreaker propellers when overcoming and breaking pack ice ^[1] .

For the first time, devices for determining the thickness of the ice cover were tested. These devices have shown their effectiveness and for several years have been refined and widely implemented. In addition, a satellite navigation system in high latitude conditions was practically tested. This system was still almost imperfect, to determine the location of the vessel it was necessary to stop for several hours ^[1] .

Based on the flight results, a report was made on the results of hydrometeorological support, which was presented at a board meeting in the General Directorate of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR . This report was presented by the director of the Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic A.F. Treshnikov and the head of the AARI expedition team I.P. Romanov ^[2] .

In addition, new methods of driving caravans were proposed.

Awarding campaign participants

All participants in the campaign were awarded orders and medals, the titles of Hero of Socialist Labor were awarded:

• icebreaker captain Yuri Kuchiev ,
• chief mechanic Oleg Pashnin ,
• Senior Master of the Nuclear Steam Generating Plant Fidus Askhadullin
• Head of the expedition Minister of the Navy Timothy Guzhenko .

The icebreaker "Arctic" was awarded the Order of the October Revolution , the head of the Murmansk Shipping Company Vladimir Ignatyuk , who was responsible for the preparation of the expedition, was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor .

•   Related texts : Decree “On conferring the title of Hero of Socialist Labor on the most distinguished participants in the experimental flight of the Arctic icebreaker“ Arctic ”” in Wikisource

• V.A. Spichkin, V.A. Shamontiev. Nuclear-powered vehicle goes to the pole. - L .: Gidrometeoizdat , 1979. - 144 p.