Houston, We Have An Icebreaker!

Many folks that read this blog are Ice Folks, or at least interested in
Antarctica, so they were aware that the United States Antarctic Program
was in danger this year of not having a fully running operation. Why?
Because there wasn't a world class icebreaker available to break open
the channel of McMurdo Sound. This has to be done so that the fuel
vessel and supply vessel can reach McMurdo to deliver their payloads.
Without them, the program as a whole would be handicapped. This
would also affect New Zealand's Scott Base and the Amundsen-Scott
South Pole Station, which also receive supplies and fuel because of
these vessels.

Years ago, the USAP depended on the Polar Star and Polar Sea U.S. Coast
Guard icebreakers to do the job. However, the Polar Sea is being
decommissioned and the Polar Star is being retrofitted and is not
available for a few more years. The past few years, the Swedish vessel,
The Oden, did the job nicely. However, it's been called back to the
Baltic Sea by the Government of Sweden and isn't available either. This
left the USAP without an icebreaker.

Today, it was announced that the Russian icebreaker, "Vladimir Ignatyuk"
has been contracted and will be performing the task. Most folks with the
program are very relieved. Everyone that was supposed to have a job,
will have a job. All the science projects that were supposed to be held,
will continue and overall a big sigh of relief was had by all.


Here is information about the icebreaker from the Murmansk Shipping
Company, which owns and operates it:

Diesel Icebreaker "Vladimir Ignatyuk"

SHIP DETAILS:
Ship Name VLADIMIR IGNATYUK
Built JUL 1983
VICTORIA YARD, BURRARD YARRROWS CORPORATION, CANADA
IMO No. 8127804
Ship Type MULTIFUNCTIONAL ICEBREAKER-TOW
Flag RUSSIAN
Port of Registry MURMANSK
Class KMICEBREAKER7 [1]
Classification Society RUSSIAN MARITIME REGISTER OF SHIPPING
Ice class ICEBREAKER7 (at d < 7.7) Features ANCHOR HANDLING STANDBY-VESSEL FIRELIGHTING CAPACITY HELIDECK - BELL 214 DESIGN HELICOPTER BERTH TOTAL 34 TONNAGE / DIMENSIONS DWT 2 076 Length (OA) 88 GT (Gross Tonnage) 4 391 Length (BP) 75 NT (Net Tonnage) 1 317 Breadth extreme 17.82 DISPLACEMENT 7 077 Depth moulded 10 Draft 8.3

MACHINERY
MAIN ENGINE (4) Stork Werkspoor Diesel. 5600 hp each
RPM 600
PROPULSION POWER 23,200 hp
AUXILLARY DIESELS 2 x 750 KWT each
THRUSTERS BOW/AFT Abt 1100 KWT/CPP 500 HP
FRESH WATER MAKERS 15 tones/day
PROPELLERS 2 C.P.P 4 blades
BOLLARD PULL Over 200 tones
AUX POWER 2 shaft generators. 1000kw each
2-750 kw diesel generators

CAPACITIES
AT DECK DIMENSIONS 37m x 13m
DECK CARGO CAPACITY 800 tones
BULK BARITE/CEMENT CAPACITY 34 m3 x 3 = 102 m3
MARINE GAS OIL, DMA (90%) 1760 m3
BALLAST WATER 1432 m3
DRILL WATER 194 m3
PORTABLE FRESH WATER 41 m3
LUBOILS TANKS 48 m3

DECK EQUIPMENT
TUGGER/WINCH 2 x 10 tones pull
CAPSTAN 2 x 12.5 tones pull
TOWING AND WORK WINCHES Complete Van der Gessen Electric winch package. Tow winch has a no­mi­nal bra­ke holding ca­pa­ci­ty of 450 ton­nes and is equip­ped with fric­ti­on rol­ler­set. Tow wire is 77mm diame­ter and is 1500m long. Doub­le an­chor handl­ing winch can ge­ne­ra­te 200 ton­nes line pull (all stall). Unit has a wa­ter cooled high speed bra­ke.
DECK CRANES 2 x 5 tones SWL Hagglund (can be rigges for limited 10 tones lifts)

LIFE-SAVING
LIFE BOAT Enclosed Watercraft Model 7.8 m
RESCUE BOAT Rigid Bottom Inflatable Lucas Model 700 D

CONTACTS
If you need more information, please, Contact Chartering / Operations Department.
Tel.: +7 (815 2) 48-10-78
Fax: +7 (815 2) 48-10-65

SCHEME

Morning Coffee

I enjoy visiting new and different coffee houses when I'm on the road.
It's almost as much fun as visiting book stores! (My name is Tom, and
I'm a geek....(crowd yells, Hi Tom!). Anyway, I digress. Let's turn back
the clock and pretend it's 1997 again. Lynn and I were opening a small
Internet coffee house in Estes Park, Colorado. We had chosen our roaster,
but were approached by a small company from Denver, named Dazbog.
Yes, it's a unique name, because the family that owns the company fled
from Leningrad in the former Soviet Union and settled in Colorado. We
were very close to choosing Dazbog, but eventually did not. They still
hold a special place in our hearts, especially since I might be working and
living in Russia sometime in the next few years. They make wonderful
coffee and their employees are always very friendly. I've never had a
bad cup of coffee at Dazbog.


After I dropped Lynn off at the office for her orientation, I needed a
place to hang out for the morning until lunchtime when it would be
time to take her to the airport. I did some research on Yelp! and
found that the highest rated coffee house in the area is Kunjani Coffee
in Parker. The staff was really friendly when I arrived, the Americano was
well-made and the breakfast burrito from Aspen Delikatessen was tasty.
Even the wifi was fast, and easy to use. All of this in a cozy, living room
type atmosphere with an option to sit outside on a nice patio.
However....this was all ruined by a group of about a dozen 40-something
women who descended on the place and spent the next two hours
talking over each other. They meant no harm, obviously, and I'm not
trying to play the role of "cranky guy", but it was really disturbing. I
searched my bag for headphones or earplugs to no avail. As a former
coffee house owner, I know there's not much that the staff could do to
quiet them, without alienating them and risking the loss of future
business, but it was just plain silly how LOUD they were. It's not a

library, but I wish people would be more conscientious of their actions.
I will come back here again. I just hope the loud ladies stay home.

Is This The Last Borders?

For those of you that regularly read my blog, I have this quasi-relationship
with the closing of Borders Books. Maybe it's just a case of denial, but I will
miss them and it's still not easy to accept that they are going out of business.
Just past Lake Tahoe, we drove through Carson City. I'd never been here and
was looking forward to seeing the State Capitol of Nevada (yes, geeky, but
something I like to do). However, about the only thing interesting about
Carson City is the fact that they have a Borders...and now it's closing.


This store obviously survived the first round of cuts several months ago.
I'm not sure why this survived and our store in Grand Junction didn't,
but that decision wasn't up to me. Entering the store, there is little
doubt that they want you to know that the store is indeed, closing.


We used to enjoy going to cafes at different Borders, but true to form, this
is one of the first areas of the store that closed down.


At least they were nice enough to put up a sign telling people that the cafe
was closed. Not that it was really needed.


This store is still in the fairly early stages of closing. Everything was pretty
much only 25% off and there were still lots of things left to buy. If I lived near
here, I would stalk this map section when it got to be at least 50% off!
Regardless, Lynn bought a couple of things and I purchased Moscow and
Colorado Lonely Planet books as well as a Russian map I've been looking for,
so the visit wasn't a complete loss. Back on the road again afterwards, but
still a little sad that this may be the last Borders that I visit before they're
all gone.