International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 3

Number 4

December 2009

409

1 INTRODUCTION

For a modern development of the operation in the

northern seas it is very important to learn from the

previous ice pilot experiences. Russian sailors have

for many centuries experienced the navigation in the

ice conditions. As seafarers the pomors (inhabitants

of Russian North) dominated an enormous zone

from the shore areas of White, Barents and Kara

seas to the archipelagos of New Land and Spitsber-

gen since the 16th century. The major factors which

allowed pomors to overcome the difficult and chal-

lenging Arctic routes were the usage of specialized

ships, called “koch”, and inheritable skills and cus-

toms.

Through the centuries Russian sailors accumulat-

ed extremely impressive skills for the operations in

the Arctic waters. The experiences of the Russian ice

pilots were summarized in the special textbooks for

the future captains. There are at least 9 such text-

books written by captains who took part in the

Northern Sea Route cruises (for example, Ari-

kaynen, Chubakov, 1987, Gotskiy, 1957). The first

such textbook was published in 1940. Key points of

the Russian Arctic history and specifics of the seas

are well known to the foreign society and research-

ers as well as it was presented in articles by Terence

Armstrong (1952) and William Barr with co-author

(Barr, 1974-1985), working papers of INSROP (In-

ternational Northern Sea Route Programme, June

1993 – March 1999), CRREL (Cold Region Re-

search and Engineering Laboratory) reports and oth-

ers. The translations introduced western audience to

the most important and dramatic pages of the NSR

history, such as, for example, the cruise of Sv. Anna

and Al'banov's sledge journey (Barr, 1975), the

Rusanov's Gerkules expedition in the Kara Sea in

1913 (Barr,1984) and the shipping crisis in the east-

ern Arctic at the close of the 1983 navigation (Barr,

Wilson, 1985).

However, some pages of this heroic epic are not

known even in Russia. The investigation of the Rus-

sian ice pilot experience has become very relevant

nowadays in the light of new activities in oil-gas ex-

ploration spreading out in the Arctic and the new

transportation possibilities appearing due to the

global warming.

Information about Russian activities in the Arctic

is gathered in the frame of the PetroArctic and Mar-

Safe projects. The data about extreme situations (ice

drift and ice jet, icing and hummocking, ridging ice

opening and closing, etc) and special weather and

Ice Conditions and Human Factors in Marine

Accidents at the Arctic

N. Marchenko

The University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

State Oceanographic Institute, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT: All activities in the Arctic are conducted near the limit of technological opportunities and hu-

man abilities. But the drain of resources in the areas convenient for development obliges us to look at this se-

vere polar region. The main objectives of the PetroArctic project (offshore and coastal technology for petro-

leum production and transport from arctic water) as a part of PETROMAX and MarSafe project (Marine

Safety Management) are to obtain and provide information for safety of Arctic operation such as hydrocar-

bons production and transport from Polar seas. One of the tasks is a collection of ice pilot experiences from

the people involved in the Arctic activities to learn how they felt in these conditions, how they solved difficult

tasks and managed the ice. Items of special interest are connected to lost vessels and other marine accidents.

Appreciable amount of written documentation and interviews have been processed and organized into a data

base of marine accidents in Russian Arctic since 1900. It includes a set of maps where the locations of the ac-

cidents are shown with a description of the accidents (date, geographical environment, vessel type, what hap-

pened and how the people acted, etc). This paper includes the map for Kara Sea and descriptions of several

accidents in the eastern part of Arctic as example of different situations, as well as the principles of the data

base construction and accidents classification.

410

ice conditions are collected. Items of special interest

are connected to the shipwrecks and other accidents.

Data about vessel type, location and time of wrecks

and damages, weather and ice conditions, descrip-

tion of events has been organized into a data base.

To prevent the future losses we need to know where

and when accidents used to take place, under what

weather and ice conditions, what happened and how

did the crew react. For many accidents the infor-

mation on distinguished features and the behavior of

humans in the Arctic waters (reactions in stressful

situations and reasons for deaths) has been collected.

The most original part of the presented investigation

is a set of maps showing the accident locations and

the ways of ice drifts.

Only accidents connected with the ice conditions

that reveal the role of human factors are taken into

consideration in this paper. Analyzing marine acci-

dents in the Arctic enables us to find a whole series

of events when the wrecks were not avoidable due to

extremely difficult circumstances. But there are also

accidents when the ice conditions looked rather good

and nothing denoted on the approaching disaster.

The rest of the events fall in between the two ex-

tremes.

2 EXPLORING OF MARINE ACCIDENTS IN

THE ARCTIC

2.1 The objectives and sources of information

The objective of this investigation is to increase the

knowledge about ice conditions and human reactions

for safety in the Arctic region. The main aim is a

sustainable development and exploitation of the Arc-

tic region. The collection of the ice pilot experiences

is a mixture of history, geography, technology and

sometimes psychology, because we have to know

how people operated in the Arctic and how they

solved difficult tasks, how man would feel and act in

the extreme conditions. The investigation presented

in this article is devoted mainly to the accidents in-

duced by the natural causes in the Arctic since 1900.

The detailed descriptions of such accidents can give

us not only great examples of a heroic behavior, but

also provide information on natural, weather and ice

conditions and show special techniques used by

crew to survive.

Among the different sources of information are

museum exhibits and written documentation, books

and journals, newspapers and internet articles as

well as oral evidences of the persons involved. The

most thrilling part of the work is interviewing ice

masters, mates and pilots. They can be found in spe-

cial communities and on real vessels. Several organ-

izations affiliate people like that, such as Russian

Geographical Society with Department of Polar Re-

gion Geography and Association of polar research-

ers and polar workers, integrating remarkable people

with extraordinary fates, connected to sea ice. Con-

versations with them are newsworthy and entertain-

ing. The same applies to interviewing the people on

board the vessels, who brave ice out almost every

day and can demonstrate actual techniques and pro-

vide real life documentation such as check-lists.

2.2 Marine accidents classification.

For our purposes we can divide all the accidents into

two main groups: with ice and without ice. There are

four main groups among the accidents in the ice

conditions. These are forced drift, forced overwin-

tering, shipwrecks and serious ice damage when the

crew has managed to rescue the ship with the help of

other vessels. Both forced drift and forced overwin-

tering can have lethal outcome (Look for example №

3 the map – figure 1). Among the accidents without

the ice we can distinguish shipwrecks and serious

damage.

All these types of accidents are quite received and

understandable. But there is a special case of forced

drift deserving of particular attention, as this is not

very common in the international science literature.

This is so called ice jet, the forced drift with consid-

erable speed. Ice flow in ice jet is so powerful that

even the modern icebreakers can not resist it. This

phenomenon has been described by V.Kupetskii

(Kupetskii, 1983) and modeled and mathematically

presented by V. Benzeman (1989). V.Benzeman

(1989) determined “ice jet” as “non-stationary jet

stream of compact ice cake, sometimes with com-

pressing, drifting with high velocity near the bound-

ary of the fast ice or motionless ice massif in a strait,

bay or open region of freezing sea”. Ice jet displays

itself as a drift with huge speed and has lead to

shipwrecks several times. The shipwreck of freighter

Nina Sagaidak in Chukchi Sea, October 1983 is a

great example. Before she sank, she was slammed to

the freighter Kamenesk-Ural’skii, while they drifted

helplessly apart (see also, Barr, 1985). (see father)

3 ACCIDENT DATA BASE

It might no be completely accurate to call our collec-

tion of accidents a data base, because not all of the

accidents in it are presented with equal accuracy and

under the same circumstances. There are sets of

books, movies and other information available for

the most famous shipwrecks such as Sv. Anna (1912-

1914) and Cheluskin (1934). Other vessels are repre-

sented by pages of several reminiscence and sets of

photos, but have only mentions about the essential

parts of accidents. The main task remaining is to ac-

cumulate as much information as possible and or-

ganize it in an appropriable way.

411

Massive amount of data is organized both geo-

graphically and chronologically. It includes a set of

maps, tables and connected files. The maps for each

Russian Arctic sea show accident locations. Expla-

nation of the maps lists the dates, names and types of

the ships with accidents itemized according to their

types (see above). More detailed maps reflect explic-

it accident location, lines of ship drift and ice condi-

tions if available. The numbers on the map corre-

spond to the numbers in the table with a short

description and a destination of the folder with de-

tailed description.

3.1 The Kara Sea example

As an illustration of the “Accidents data base” con-

struction the short extraction for the Kara Sea is pre-

sented here. The example includes only one map

(figure 1) for accidents which had been induced by

hard ice condition, explanation to the map and the

beginning of the table with short description of the

accidents. It should be stated that the ice drift has

usually very complicated and chaotic configuration

and only the main direction without any loops and

zigzags is presented on this map. References in the

table are given on only the essential sources in Rus-

sian and in English.

Figure 1. Accidents in Kara Sea since 1900, induced by ice

conditions.

Explanation to the map “Accidents in Kara Sea since 1900, in-

duced by ice conditions (figure 1)

___________________________________________________

Forced drift with ice – 14

1 - 1900. September-October. Wooden yacht Mechta

2 - 1907. July- August. Research vessel Belgica

3 - 1912-1914. Wooden schooner Svyataya Anna

4 - 1920. January- June. Steamer Solovey Budimirovich (later

recalled to Malygin).

5 - 1930. August (7 days). Icebreaking steamer (IS) Sedov.

6 –1934. (23 days). IS Sadko.

7 –1936. (28 days) IS Sibiryakov.

8 –1937. August. IS Sadko.

9 –1937. September. The whole caravan of vessels with IS

Yermak.

10 –1937. Summer. Several weeks. Research vessel Professor

Vize.

11 –1963. October. Caravan of vessels with icebreaker Lenin

12 –1963. October. Steamer Novovoronezh.

13 –1977. November. Icebreaker Captain Sorokin.

14 –1980. March-April. 2 nuclear icebreakers Sibir’,

Arktika and icebreaker Kiev.

Forced overwintering – 7

15 –26. September 1900 – 30. August 1901. Schooner Zarya

16 – 12. September 1914- 11. August 1915. Schooner Eklips

17 – 9. September 1914 – 2. August 1915. IS Taymyr.

18 – 9. September 1914 – 2. August 1915. IS Vaygach.

19 – Autumn 1936 – summer 1937. Survey vessel Toros.

20 –October 1937 – June 1938. Almost half of the transport

vessels (26 ships) and the entire icebreaker fleet

(7 icebreakers) overwintered in the Arctic. Litke,

Mossovet, Uriskiy, Pravda, Krest’yanka, Molokov

were beset at the south- east cost of Bol’shevik

Island.

21 – October 1937 – June 1938. 6 cargo ships

Shipwreck - 5

22 – 1912-1913?. Sealing ship Gerkules

23 – 1921. 17. September. Steamer Enisey.

24 – 1921. 20. September. Steamer Ob’ .

25 – 1924. Schooner Agnessa.

26 – 1985. June. Freighter Nina Kuroverova.

Damage by ice - 3

27 – 1933. August. Steamer Cheluskin.

28 – 1937. August. Icebreaking steamer Sedov.

29 – 1937. August. Freighter Sura.

___________________________________________________

Table. Short description of accidents in Kara Sea since 1900, induced by ice conditions.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

№ Short description References Links

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Forced drift with ice - 14

1 1900. September- October. Wooden yacht Mechta (led by A.A.Borisov). Vize, 1948 http://www.solovki.ca/

Forced drift with ice along the east coast of South Island Novaya Zemlya art/borisov.php

since the end of September. The crew left her at 10. October 1900 and

walked and swam through the ice, reached the land near the mouth of Savina

River, crossed Novaya Zemlya and arrived to Pomorskaya Guba at 12.

November 1900.

2 1907. July- August. Research vessel Belgica (led by Philippe duke Vize, 1948

d'Orléans). Nipped by the ice in Matochkin Shar at the end of July. Current

carried her with the ice to the south and drove upon Barents Sea through Kara

Gate (16. August 1907), saved by herself.

3 1912-1914. Wooden schooner Svyataya Anna (captain Brusilov). Al’banov, http://www.kapustin.boom.ru/

The ship became beset just west to Yamal Peninsula in October 1912 and 1917– 1978, journal/albanov01.htm

drifted steadily northward in the ice. By April 1914 she was still drifting Barr, 1978 http://www.rusk.ru/

100 km north of Franz Josef Land and further to the north - Evidently wrecked – st.php?idar=708035

Crew dead, except for 2 men (V.Al’banov, Konrad) who managed to reach

Franz Josef Land.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

These accidents had been described by Yu.Vize (1948), M.Belov (1959), Pinkhenson (1962), V. Kupetskiy (1983), Benzeman

(1989) and other. There is also information in English (Barr, 1974, 1984, etc).

412

3.2 The accident examples

The two events in eastern sector of the Arctic will be

described below as an example of the accidents. The

first one is about a human factor, the second one il-

lustrates the invincible natural forces action. See

photo and location on fig.2,3.

3.3 Example 1. 1955. East-Siberian Sea. Motor

vessel Kamenets-Podolsk

Accident with motor vessel Kamenets-Podolsk have

been described in the reminiscences of captain Pacel

Kuyantsev (1998). At the end of September 1955

she sailed from the Ugol'naya bay to the cape of

Shmidta (Mys Shmidta) with a full load of coal. She

was convoyed by an icebreaker. But northern winds

brought a lot of heavy ice and made further move-

ment impossible at the distance of 50 km before the

aim. The ships waited the whole earth-day and after

that gave the order to go back to Pevek. The ice

condition was very hard till Mys Billingsa and the

speed was extremely slow. The case demanded

skilled use of energy and concentration of every-

body’s attention. To the west of Mys Shalaurova the

conditions improved and the compactness of ice de-

creased to 5 balls. The exhausted crew respired, cap-

tain was able to afford a short coffee break and went

down to his cabin. He had left the bridge for only 10

minutes, but when he returned, he immediately real-

ized that an unavoidable accident was already un-

folding. An ice-free clearing spread before the bow

had been left by an icebreaker sailing half a mile

ahead. Pieces of ice drifted here and there. Their po-

sition relative to the ice field was changing. The se-

cond mate noticed a small piece of ice and thought it

was also floating separately from the ice field. When

he put the helm to port to avoid it, Captain noticed at

once that this piece of ice was not moving and real-

ized it was the top of a submerged ice ledge. It was

too late to turn starboard. At the vessel's speed of

about seven knots, a submerged ice ledge, if collided

with the fore holds, could rip the vessel from the

bow to the bridge. The only decision at this point

was to stop the vessel. "Back_Full" command was

given and it worked at once as forward motion was

reduced. However, the propeller operation astern

caused the moving vessel's bow to swing to star-

board at the speed of 4 knots, brushing the forward

port quarter against the ice. The terrible racket of

tearing metal was heard and the vessel listed sharply

to starboard. Captain turned the key for general

alarm and immediately heard a splashing sound of a

waterfall as water rushed into the hull to the first

hold, maybe to the second hold, and the forepeak.

The hole was 1 meter x 1 meter in the size and an

opening of 10 cm wide also appeared in the stern af-

ter collision. The ship was settling down quickly

bows on, the stern was lifting dangerously. Captain

was ready to give the order to leave the ship and go

down to the ice. But in a minute the dressed sleeping

staff was on the place and rescue operation began.

In seven minutes patch was placed and the bow

stopped submerging. The first and second holds

were opened. The first hold was filled up to the sea

level and over a half of twin deck. The bow sub-

merged under water up to the anchors. Fortunately

the screw and the helm were in the water as she

moved by the stern before collision (trim was near 1

meter). It was impossible to pump the water away,

because the pipes were blocked by the coal. But wa-

ter lever in the holds rose up very slowly. After dis-

cussions it was decided to continue the voyage and

sail to the cape behind the icebreaker with low speed

while monitoring water in the holds. Kamenets-

Podolsk reached the port of Pevek at a speed of 10

knots.

Two jokes spread to ice pilot society after that ac-

cident. The first lesson was that during Arctic Navi-

gation the captain “should drink coffee on the

bridge, not downstairs”. When captain Kuyantsev

reported that it was his mistake due to inexperience

in his first ice navigation, the chief of the headquar-

ters M.V.Gotskii (very famous and revered captain)

replayed that according to Russian tradition, arriving

of ship with crushed stem is not a dishonor for cap-

tain, it is the sign of his sureness and courage. But if

the screw and the helm were broken, captain has to

feel the shame.

3.4 Example 2. 1983. Chukchi Sea. Freighter Nina

Sagaidak (figure.2,3)

Figure 2. Location of accidents

Figure 3. Nina Sagaydak sinking

http://www.yaplakal.com/uploads/post-3-12340193324991.jpg

413

The second accident to be described here is a

well-known shipwreck of freighter Nina Sagaidak in

Chukchi Sea during terrible ending of navigation

season(?) in 1983. An unusually early freeze-up and

persistent northwesterly winds that drove heavy

multi-year ice into Proliv Longa and against the

north coast of Chukotka resulted in a critical situa-

tion. During September several ports were prema-

turely closed by ice, leaving Pevek as the only func-

tioning port in this part of the Arctic. Dozens of

ships were beset. Practically all available ice break-

ers were transferred from the western to the eastern

Arctic to free the jammed ships. Many ships were

forced to head west from Pevek to the Atlantic, ra-

ther than attempt to battle their way through the

heavy ice in Proliv Longa in order to return to their

Pacific home ports. One early report put the number

of damaged ships as being in excess of 30

(Bratchikov, 1983). Fortunately, there were no lives

lost.

Let’s remember this event in English presentation

by W.Barr and E.Wilson (Barr,Wilson,1985)

“Early in October the freighter Nina Sagaydak

one of a convoy of ships westward bound to Pevek

that was caught by the ice near Kosa Dvukh Pilotov,

a little to the east of Mys Shmidta, found herself in

serious difficulties. Built at Rostock, East Germany,

by the Schiffswerft Neptun in 1970, Nina Sagaydak

was one of a class of 31 almost identical small

freighters of between 341 1 and 3684 gross tons; she

was 105.7 m long, with a beam of 15.65 m and en-

gines of 3250 bhp, giving her a top speed o1f 3.75

knots. On 6 October 1983 the freighter Nina

Sagaydak was caught in multi-year ice 3-m thick be-

ing driven against the edge of the fast ice, and soon

irresistible ice pressures began to build up. Massive

pressure ridges piled up against her sides, with

enormous ice blocks tumbling over her rails. Her

stern was forced against the fast ice and her rudder

and propeller were jammed. To compound the diffi-

culties the freighter next collided with the tanker

Kamensk-Urul'skiy, also drifting helplessly in the

ice. For over half an hour the ships ground against

each other, and despite frantic efforts to place fend-

ers between the two hulls, both ships received some

damage; Nina Sagaydak came off worst. Her crew

was rather startled to see the tanker's crew pouring

water down the sides of their ship at the points of

contact between the hulls in case sparks caused by

the grinding and pounding might ignite fumes from

the tanker's cargo. The two ships ultimately drifted

apart, but even worse was in store for Nina

Sagaydak. As the ice pressures continued, her hull

plates began to crack and the water began to rise in-

exorably in the engine room. Despite every effort

her pumps were unable to cope with the enormous

influx of water and the ship began to list heavily to

starboard. When the list had reached the alarming

angle of 40

the chief engineer brought all his men

on deck and the captain gave orders for the crew of

45, and a further 6 men accompanying the ship's

cargo, to be lifted off by helicopters from the ice-

breakers Kapitan Sorokin and Vladivostok, which

were standing by, unable to save the sinking vessel.

The ship stubbornly remained afloat, held up by the

ice and with her engines and pumps still running un-

attended for almost a day. Finally, early on the even-

ing of 8 October, while her crew watched helplessly

from Kapitan Sorokin barely a ship’s length away,

Nina Sagaydak sank by the head. Her crew was

flown south to Vladivostok, and a commission of

enquiry into the loss of the ship was convened at

Pevek. It concluded that no blame attached to any of

the officers or crew members and that everything

possible had been done to save the ship”.

On the day after Nina Sagaydak sank, her sister

ship Kolya Myagotin was caught between two mas-

sive ice floes and badly holed (see figure 2). As a

precaution most of her crew was evacuated by heli-

copter and only five of the crew battled to keep the

ship afloat and they managed to rescue her. But it is

another story.

4 CONCLUSIONS AND

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Creation of Accident Data Base is not finished yet

because of the new circumstances and details that

have been and can be found. It seems to be an end-

less process. But even now this set of accident de-

scriptions can be useful for understanding the ice,

weather and human conditions in the Arctic and for

planning the future activities in this severe region. A

more thorough review of the “data base” is, howev-

er, in preparation (Marchenko, 2009).

This study is founded by the PetroArctic project

and the author acknowledges The Research Council

of Norway for the financial support which was pro-

vided by the PETROMAKS program and PetroArc-

tic as a part of the PETROMAKS. The author appre-

ciates Prof. Ove T. Gudmestad and Prof. Sv.Løset

for the original idea and helpful discussions and

thanks the staff of the libraries at State Oceano-

graphic Institute and Arctic and Antarctic Research

Institute.

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