A formal ceremony was held in St Petersburg to mark the completion and delivery of the latest crab vessel to be built at a shipyard in Russia.
Built at the Onega Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Plant for Far East fishing company Russian Crab, Kapitan Aleksandrov is designed to fish in the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan for a variety of crab species.
Kapitan Aleksandrov has a 57.70 metre overall length with a 12.60 metre beam and has 4400 cubic metres of vivier tank capacity able to hold 110-120 tonnes of live crab on board. Accommodation is for a crew of up to 24. It is expected to take the Northern Sea Route on its delivery trip to the Far East.
This vessel and the other newbuilds in the series for Russian Crab are built under the Russian government’s investment quotas initiative.
‘Such vessels are certainly needed, because this is the driver of progress, not only for fishermen, but for the whole country. We must learn to make build ships ourselves, without outside help or with minimal outside help. This is now the number one task facing everyone who is interested in the future of our state,’ said Alexander Sapozhnikov, General Director of the Russian Crab Group of Companies.
The design of the vessels in this series includes innovative systems, including digital monitoring of all key parameters of the vessel’s operation and storage of live crab, with data held in the wheelhouse and shared with the office ashore. The storage system for catches consists of 32 independent tanks located in a two-level hold. Each tank is equipped with control systems to manage temperature, salinity and oxygen content in the water, which is designed to ensure maximum catch quality.
‘The renewal of the fishing fleet is one of the strategic priorities of our state,’ commented Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Evtukhov, who attended the handover ceremony.
‘First of all, it is food security. Secondly, we are developing our competencies and expanding the horizon of technologies in the field of civil shipbuilding in general. The safety of operation is increasing, the working conditions of crews are improving. And most importantly, this is the way to ensure the technological independence of Russian shipbuilding.’
The new vessel is named after Georgy Ivanovich Aleksandrov (1882-1939) who was a leading figure in the development of the crab fishery in the Russian Far East.
Kapitan Aleksandrov is the lead vessel in a fleet of ten new vessels with which Russian Crab aims to replace its fleet of elderly tonnage under a programme that began in 2020 to build seven vivier crabbers and three processor crabber vessels.
