From its offices in Moscow, V/O Sudoimport, the sole import and export representative of the Soviet shipbuilding and engineering industries, deals daily with firms and agencies in more than 40 countries, some the largest and most modern shipyards in the world.
Steadily increasing the size, capabilities—and range—of their maritime and commercial fishing fleets, the Soviet Union attaches great importance to the shipyards located in the Baltic Sea region.
Notable among the Baltic firms are the Russian-dominated shipyards of VEB* Volkswerfts, Stralsund, East Germany, and the Polish government-controlled yards at Gdansk and Gdynia. Soviet orders also pour into the West German yards of Kieler Howaldtswerke at Kiel, and Burmeister & Wain’s Maskin-Og Skibsbyggeri shipyards in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Perhaps the most important recent additions to Soviet fishing fleets have been the Tropik-class and Atlantik-class stern trawlers, vessels whose design evolutions are based on modifications and improvements dictated by working experiences gained by the Soviets over the past 20 years. Both of these designs are constructed and launched from East Germany’s VEB Volkswerft shipyards, located slightly northwest of Peenemünde, famed site of Nazi missile research and test activities during World War II.
Even though smaller than many other German Democratic Republic shipyards, VEB Volkswerft has managed to maintain a record of high foreign sales and earnings since 1949, primarily with the Soviet Sudoimport Agency, by constructing and delivering 596 Srednii Rybolovnii Trauler (SRT) and Okean-class Srednii Rybolovnii Trauler, Refrizheratornii (SRT-R) lugger-type side trawlers, the backbone of Soviet trawl and purse seine operations in both high seas and coastal fisheries. This yard also has delivered eight 270-foot, Bratsk-class refrigerated transport vessels prior to beginning on the construction of the Tropik series.
Late in 1961, Stralsund delivered the first of 86 Tropik-class, 261-foot stern-slip factory trawlers to her Soviet crew. The first six Atlantik-class stern trawlers, design successor to the Tropik, were being completed for Sudoimport in November 1966, with 11 more in various stages of construction.
Using highly automated, conveyorized construction processes and pre-constructed section techniques similar to those employed by America’s Kaiser Corporation in producing Victory transport ships during World War II, VEB Volkswerft reduced the 1963 construction cycle of 380 days for the Tropik-class trawler to 150 days for the new prototypes of the Atlantik class by 1966.
Quoted in the Soviet press, lzvestiya, Herr Hans Homburg, director of VEB Volkswerft, described the introduction, early in 1967, of computers at Stralsund. These permitted his yard to produce the more complicated 270-foot Atlantik class within a 120-day construction cycle by early 1970.
An amazingly short amortization period of 17 months is claimed for the 1.8-million-dollar capital cost of the Tropik/Atlantik series by Soviet, East German, and Ghanaian owners by the East German VEB Schiffbau, Directorate of Shipbuilding. In comparison, complete amortization for the British Lord Nelson type was claimed to be 26 months, with 33 months for the Romanian Constanta-type, built in Japanese yards.
But, enough talk of schedules, computers, and financial considerations. Let us now take a look—one that will be the more interesting for having been denied us so long—at the vessels themselves.
Tropik-class freezer stern-slip trawler. The highly sophisticated and complex design of the Soviet Tropik/Atlantik series has attracted worldwide attention from naval and intelligence operations specialists, as well as fisheries personnel.
*Volks Eigener Betrieb or People’s Own Industry.
Designed with the latest long and short-range radar, 24-channel, high-frequency radio transmitter/receiver and monitoring equipment, horizontal and vertical hydro-acoustical gear, radio directional finder (DF) navigational positioning equipment, together with the extreme maneuverability provided by the installation of the Stralsund-patented Vostra power rudder, these vessels easily fulfill the scope of assignments as intelligence-gathering units and for operations of a paramilitary nature which have been attributed to them.
Assigned and operated as fisheries vessels, no other singular design achieves such spectacularly efficient results in any type of fishery, regardless of the extremes of Arctic or tropical climate.
Specifically designed for commercial fishing operations in the middle and southern Atlantic and structurally strengthened for Arctic ice conditions, the Tropik class is also operated in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are equipped for drift netting, otter or bottom trawl, and mid-water or layer trawl in herring, sardine, and round fish species; long-line for tuna; purse seining, using one dory and one work boat; and the new technique of light and suction pump fishing with a Type RB250 fish pump of Soviet manufacture.
Self-sufficient for 60-day cruise operations with a range of 15,800 nautical miles, the Tropik-class lands as much as 5,800 metric tons of completely-processed fish and fish-products annually.
An unobstructed view fore and aft allows the trawl bridge officer to direct all activities on the working deck from the dual-purpose bridge. Release and retrieval of nets and operation of deck davits and winches, are remotely controlled from the trawl bridge.
Propelled by two reversible, four-stroke, 8-cylinder, Type 8 NVD diesel engines from VEB Schwermachinenbau Karl Liebknecht, Magdeburg, the Tropik class develops 1,650 h.p., providing a cruising speed of 11.5 knots and trawl operations at 6-7 knots.
Power from the twin engine prime propulsion units is supplied across electric couplers to reduction gearing and a shaft-driven, 3.4-meter (11.15-foot) variable-pitch screw working at 150 r.p.m. Electric couplers located between engines and reduction gearing compensate for torque-overloads of the prime mover. Aft of the gearing, a 230-kw., three-phase, shaft propulsion motor is able to supply power from board mains to the screw across another system of electric couplers. In the event of electric coupler disconnect, the three-phase shaft propulsion motor can serve as driver for an alternating 300-kw., d.c., shaft propulsion power source.
The shaft line is comprised of an adjusting shaft, three intermediate shafts, hydraulically operated control gear, screw shaft with stem pipe, and the variable-pitch screw. Intermediate shafts revolve on support bearings, the stempipe is mounted on silent blocks.
Four diesel electric aggregates of 270-kv-a, in addition to a 100-kv-a booster and an emergency 60-kv-a set on the main deck, provide auxiliary power. Two 6-ton and two 1.5-ton capacity derrick/winch combinations allow a maximum 12-metric-ton trawl net haul at a retrieval speed of 196 feet per minute.
Direct current shaft propulsion motors, coupled with ship’s gears, provide the power potential to windlasses for retrieving trawl gear. When operating as additional propulsion power, drive energy is converted across the windlass drive, passing it to the shaft line, allowing additional power from ship’s mains to be supplied to the shaft line.
Designed and patented by VEB Volkswerft, Stralsund, the Vostra-powered rudder excels the U. S. bow-and-stern thrusters which serve essentially the same purpose—that of extreme maneuverability without the use of the prime mover.
This gear is known to be installed on most Soviet naval vessels and the larger maritime and commercial fisheries vessels, and it may have provided the extreme maneuverability demonstrated by the Soviet cruiser visiting British waters, where Royal Navy frogman, Commander Crabbe, was killed during a clandestine survey of the cruiser’s hull about 15 years ago.
A quadrant-type steering device having a maximum control-surface moment of 10 m.p.m., the Vostra active rudder incorporates a nozzle ring in the center of a standard-section, completely welded rudder blade. A 31.5-inch propeller installed in the nozzle ring is driven by a primary three-phase current 70-kw. motor and an identically rated motor in reserve, both mounted in the engine room on the rudder axis. Power is transmitted by means of a 90° bell-crank drive geared to a shaft in the rudder axis. Angular displacement of the rudder exceeds 90°. Electric couplers automatically disconnect the prime diesel engines when the rudder angle exceeds 35° in either direction. Emergency steerage is provided by means of manually wound tackle.
The Vostra rudder, which allows the ship to turn through 360° within her own length without using the main engines, is particularly useful in working the huge nets.
With the loaded trawl, purse seine or drift nets on board, or the work deck a mass of tuna hauled in on long-lines from the special folding platforms on port and starboard side of the forecastle, after working deck, and at the stern, the catch is sluiced down two hydraulically operated hatches, conveyed to two brine-cooling tanks with a total daily capacity of 48 metric tons, and immediately chilled to 2° Centigrade.
Passing from the cooling tanks, the catch moves in bucket conveyors, dropping through chutes to the sorting-belt. There, it is sized, processed as fillets or whole fish, loaded on rail-guided carts and passed through flash freezing tunnels at a rate of 30 metric tons every 22 hours. Two 7-cylinder compressors using compressed ammonium (NH3) refrigerant maintain a temperature of –19° Centigrade in the flash freezing plant, –25° Centigrade in the refrigerated holds.
Whole fish, or fillets in blocks 2.5”x10”x32”, are automatically wrapped in foil, vacuum-sealed, packed into cardboard cartons, and stored in the refrigerated holds after freezing.
Surplus catch, fish rejected at the sorting and sizing stations, miscellaneous catch and refuse from the processing operations progressively move through a fish-meal plant with a capacity of 25 metric tons every 24 hours where it is dried, pulverized, passed over magnetic separators, and moved pneumatically to bagging machines.
Stick water and fish oil resulting from process operations is formed into a vitamin rich fish oil. Fish livers are reduced to liver oil in a Titan liver oil plant capable of rendering 882 pounds of raw liver an hour.
Special bunkers and tanks provide storage for bagged fishmeal, fish, and liver oils.
Three refrigerated cargo holds insulated with sponge rubber polysterole have a total capacity of 470 metric tons. Bulkheads and overhead are lathed in sheet aluminum and the 5-mm. steel deck is covered with a wooden grating.
Highly sophisticated hydro-acoustical gear installed in the Tropik provides for detection of fish concentrations and underwater obstacles by both horizontal and vertical soundings.
Horizontal broad-band, medium-frequency soundings are conducted in the bearing heading to a distance of 2,000 meters or approximately 6,500 feet, and aft 150° to either port or starboard in an overall arc of 300°. Vertical sounding orientation used to determine depth of fish shoal also locate otter and mid-layer trawl nets during trawl operations, using a special net probe and a keel vibrator. Signals from these units are switched to respective register indicators located on the navigation bridge.
As a fish shoal is located through horizontal or vertical soundings, narrow-band higher frequency acoustical waves directed at the shoal are viewed on a special amplification scope controlled in the chart room immediately behind the navigation bridge. Mathematical evaluation of the scattering of these higher-frequency waves provides identification of varying fish structure cross sections to species, those with and without gas swim bladders, Crustacea, and fishery animals consisting of soft jelly-like tissues.
Identifying species in this manner, the vessel can limit her operations to specific types, bypassing those she does not wish to exploit.
Rotating radar antennae, highly directional in the horizontal plane, are installed on the antennae deck above the navigation bridge. The long-range Don radar set provides range and azimuth for a full 360° circular scan in plan position indicator (PPI) presentation, using a cathode-ray tube with a long-persistence screen. A second radar set, the Donez, using intensified modulation resulting in high gain, provides high-contrast, bright-target mass and low contrast sea return in PPI presentation for coastal navigation. Both radar sets are supplied as customer furnished equipment (CFE) to VEB Volkswerft, Stralsund, by Sudoimport.
Radio communication equipment aboard ships of the Tropik class is manufactured by both Soviet and German firms. The Blesna 250-watt high-frequency and 250-watt medium-wave transmitters, and two Wolna wide-band receivers are supplied by Sudoimport. A 100-watt high-frequency and mid-wave band transmitter, and a 50-watt emergency set are supplied by the Kopenick firm located in the Soviet sector of southeast Berlin. An emergency transmitter and receiver is provided from the East German Dabendorf plant. A 25-watt standard ship-to-shore transmitter-receiver station for coastal communications is located in the navigation chartroom. Work orders to deck personnel and crews in workboats are transmitted on a 2M amplified bull horn.
A Dabendorf radio directional finder (DF) for navigational positioning is located in the navigation chart house with range receiver and grid. The correspondent loop antenna is installed on the antennae deck above the bridge.
Other navigational aids include a CFE Amur, air-cooled master gyro-compass on the forward bridge with repeaters at the helm, on the trawl-bridge and in the engine room with a course recorder, auxiliary radar scopes, and hydro-acoustical sound amplifier.
Additional ship control installations on the bridge include an electric machine telegraph, a speedometer calibrated for nautical interpretation, one shaft r.p.m. counter, three engine r.p.m. counters and, significantly, a main engine r.p.m. adjustment control to aid in convoy positioning in multiple-vessel operations. Also provided are two fuel rate indicators for the main engines, one pitch-adjustment control for the variable-pitch screw, four rudder-angle indicators, and an auto pilot.
In the event of disaster at sea, four lifeboats and four liferafts are supplied, equipped with Soviet Schlup emergency transmitters.
Designed for extended operational cruising in tropical waters, the Tropik-class vessels incorporate maximum creature comfort for a crew of 76, accommodated in one, two, and four-man compartments. Central air-conditioning and individual compartment heating is provided for all living, service, and recreational areas.
The most casual appraisal of the intricate bridge and engine controls on this vessel, together with the radar, DF, vertical and horizontal hydro-acoustical gear and complex radio and electronic monitoring equipment indicates the rather high probability of its use in paramilitary situations such as intelligence gathering units. A minimal retrofit program could easily transform the Tropiks into convoy escorts, minelayers, and with installation of Styx missile launchers, missile frigates.
Atlantik-class freezer trawler. Successor in design evolution to the Tropik class, the 270-foot Atlantik-class vessels are the result of continuing improvement and design modification based on actual working operations in the fisheries.
The long forecastle, forward gantry or portal mast, and single funnel of the Tropik configuration has been replaced with a shorter forecastle, eliminating the forward gantry and using twin funnels to allow better visibility from the trawl bridge aft to the fishing deck and stern slip. The new design features two 44-man lifeboats slung on gravitation davits immediately behind each funnel.
Following the general plan of the Tropik design, hydraulic hatches on the stern slip have been increased to four, each relating to a separate brine-cooling tank.
Two 8-cylinder, four-stroke, direct-reversing, supercharged diesels, each supplying 1,160 b.h.p. at 375 r.p.m. have increased the cruising speed to 13 knots, using 2,300 h.p. of a total 2,630 h.p. available, with a 15-ton trawl tow at six knots.
Equipped for pelagic and bottom trawling, tuna long-line facilities having been eliminated in favor of the more efficient purse-seine method, the Atlantik’s general catch and freezer-factory design provides for greater efficiency. Continuous conveyor-belt operations have replaced rail-guided carts in the flash-freezing tunnels, and refrigerated storage has been increased to an aggregate 39,000 cubic feet in three holds.
Radio communication equipment is mainly Soviet-supplied. The 250-watt Blesna and Wolna transmitters installed in the Tropik design have been replaced with a 300-watt Wolchow medium-frequency set and a 400-watt high-frequency Ilmen set on the Atlantik.
Radar, hydro-acoustical gear, DF and 24-channel VHF sets and the Vostra active rudder installations are as described for the Tropik design.
Using the construction capabilities at Howaldtswerke in the Kiel area through 1967, Soviet crews have taken delivery of eight redesigned and improved versions of the Zakharov-class, 549-foot l.o.a., factory mother ships; the 596-foot l.o.a., whale and fish factory vessels, Vladivostok and Dal’niy Vostok; and 24 Pushkin-class, 282-foot l.o.a., stern trawlers under Sudoimport procurements.
Whale factory ships such as the 33,150-grt., 715-foot l.o.a. , Sovetskaia Rossiia and Sovetskaia Ukrania; and the 17,149-grt. Vladivostok and Dal’niy Vostok, primarily designed for whale exploitation, have found secondary use as motherships in round and flat fisheries, owing to their highly automated fish factory and canning facilities and extensive refrigerated storage capacity.
Excluding the whale factory vessels from the secondary role of motherships, the Soviets have taken delivery of 27 B-62, B-64, and B-69, modified Severodvinsk-class motherships from the Communist-controlled Polish government shipyards at Gdansk, Poland, an indeterminable number of Zakharov-class factory vessels launched from the Soviet Admiralty shipyards at Leningrad on the Baltic Sea, and improved design versions of the Zakharov class from Howaldtswerke, Kiel, all specifically designed to perform the function of a base mothership providing factory processing and logistics support to fleets of side and stern trawler catch vessels.
Most numerous of the various classes of Russian offshore fishery vessels are the SRT 260 grt., 130-foot l.o.a. , non-refrigerated side-trawler with 15-man crews, and the Okean class, 505 grt., 167-foot l.o.a. SRT-R refrigerated side-trawler with a crew of 26 men. Conventional side-trawlers, equipped for otter, mid-layer trawl, ring net and gillnet fishing, these vessels can work independently for 30 to 40 days at unlimited distances from shore.
The BMRT, Bolshoi Morozilnii Rybolovnii Trauler, or large freezer fishing trawler, is represented by five classes of stern-slip trawlers, the Pushkin, Maiakovskii, Lescov, Tropik, and Atlantik, designed for independent operations for periods extending to 60 days in distant offshore fisheries. Both general classes, the SRT/SRT-R and the BMRT, can remain on station in fleet strength almost indefinitely, commanded and operationally-supported by Zakharov and Severodvinsk-class motherships providing extensive fish factory and freezer processing lines, fuel, food, water, and medical and recreational facilities.
Extended fishing fleet operations of this nature are further serviced by several classes of refrigerated transports with processing lines for freezing, packing, and refrigerated storage of fish taken aboard fresh or iced from the catcher vessels. Transporting the frozen catch to Soviet ports, these vessels deliver turnaround crews to vessels remaining on station for long periods, restocking depleted food, and medical and recreational supplies.
Typical of these classes of transport are the 270-foot, 2,500-ton Bratsk, launched from VEB Volkswerft, Stralsund; the 325-foot, 3,250-ton Tavriia, constructed at the Nikolaev shipyard on the Black Sea; the 328-foot, 4,699-ton, Pervomaisk, built at Burmeister & Wain’s Maskin-Og Skibsbyggeri, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the 430-foot, 5,250-ton, Sevastopol, built at the Baltic shipyards of Leningrad.
Zakharov-class factory mothership. Constructed at the Kieler Howaldtswerke yards, Kiel, West Germany, the Zarkharov [sic] vessels are floating fish processing factories complete with canneries, production lines to dry and pulverize offal and fish rejected at the sizing stations into fish meal for animal and plant food, rendering plants to process raw fish livers into a highly concentrated vitamin B rich oil, and special processing lines to convert salmon roe into caviar. The Zakharov ships are designed to process 400 metric tons of fish daily.
The Zakharov vessels, 548.6-foot l.o.a., with a 78.7-foot beam and a loaded draft of 24.8-feet, have a gross tonnage of 16,399 tons, and cruise at 14 knots. This class has a tremendous refrigerated net hold capacity of 525,123 cubic feet. Significantly, Sudoimport supplies Howaldtswerke with the Vostra power rudder from VEB Stralsund for installation in the Zakharov.
Structurally strengthened for operations in ice, heated and air-conditioned in all work spaces, living, and service areas, internally designed with highly mechanized production lines and canning facilities for all types of fish and shell fish, the Zakharov motherships are operable on a year-around basis to exploit fisheries in Arctic or tropical zones.
Without catch gear of their own, the Zakharov class trans-ships fresh, iced, or frozen catch from eight SRT and BMRT catch vessels moored alongside simultaneously, four each to port and starboard rails.
As heavy runs in large shoals of fish are experienced, catch vessels disconnect and leave loaded nets buoyed in the sea with radar reflectors attached, continuing their exploitation with spare nets. Buoyed nets are located by radar from the mothership and retrieved through her stern slip.
Highly automated factory production lines incorporating automatic and semi-automatic equipment provide for length or slab filleting of flat and round fish, processing of whole fish such as saury, sardines and herring, as well as shrimp, lobster, crab, and king crab. Canning lines produce to a level of 1,600 cases daily.
Completely self-reliant at sea, these ships have a 270-man crew and factory work force which have access to a complete hospital with operating theater, x-ray, dental facilities and treatment room; a cinema, library, cobbler and tailor shops, hair dresser, and barbershop.
The powerplant for the Zakharov class is a Howaldts-M.A.N. diesel engine, type 6 KZ 70/120C, supplying 5,640 b.h.p. at 135 r.p.m., with six diesel-electric aggregates of 550 kw. Two Howaldts heavy-duty water tube boilers each supply an hourly steam output of 7.5 tons at 13 kg/cm2 for heating and factory operations. Four fresh water evaporators provide 165 tons of fresh water daily.
On the fishing grounds, the captain of the mothership retains operational command of the fleet of catcher vessels. Fitted with the extremely sophisticated horizontal and vertical hydro-acoustical gear developed specifically for fisheries exploitation, together with oceanographic details and fisheries exploratory data provided by fisheries research trawlers which preceded arrival of the fishing fleet, the mothership supplies direction and guidance to collective fleet operations.
Designing their fisheries vessels to exploit multiple fisheries stocks with extreme specialization, the Soviets have not overlooked worldwide ranging whale stocks.
Cruising the Antarctic, Pacific, and Arctic seas, Soviet vessels, together with those of Japan and Norway, have irresponsibly over-exploited whale stocks to near extinction for short-term commercial interests, completely ignoring regulations imposed by the International Whaling Commission to which their respective governments have been signatory since 1931.
The 596-foot Dal’niy Vostok and her sister-ship the Vladivostok were launched at Howaldtswerke, Kiel, as German Lloyd class 100 A/4 Whaling and Fish Factory vessels with 2.54-meter freeboard, strengthened for navigation in ice.
These two vessels, together with the larger 715-foot l.o.a., Sovetskaia Rossiia and Sovetskaia Ukraina, each of 33,150 tons, were primarily constructed to exploit whale stocks.
Designed for use alternately as a whaling factory or a floating fish factory, the Vladivostok and Dal’niy Vostok, each with a crew and work force of 408 persons, are equipped with a permanent whale processing factory, fish meal plant and freezing tunnel, and a portable fish processing plant which is installed on the whale flensing deck when in operation as other than whaling base ships.
The whaling factory is engineered to process daily 1,700 metric tons of raw whale into 190 tons of whale oil, 130 tons of blubber oil, 6.5 tons of vitamin oil, 45 tons of frozen meat, 72 tons of whale meal, 60 tons of blubber meal processed for animal food, and 66 tons of pulverized and dried grax meal for fertilizer.
Helicopters, operating from the helipad and hangar located on the aft superstructure, conduct search operations beyond the 6,500-foot capability of the vessel’s horizontal-vertical sonar gear and the sight and sound ranging capabilities of the flotilla of whale catcher vessels.
Owing to the nature of the whaling operations, extensive heavy duty deck equipment is located aboard the whale factory ship consisting of two 40-ton rated steam-operated winches used to haul carcasses up the stern slipway; one 20-ton hoisting winch, sixteen 5-ton and five 10-ton cargo winches; nine 5-ton, one 10-ton and one 30-ton electrically-operated cargo derricks; as well as two 5-ton luffing cranes.
The deck outfitting also includes a 16 to 32-ton rated anchor windlass, with eight steam and two electrical 8-ton rated warping capstans.
Depending on the species of fish being exploited, the fish production factory can process daily 500 metric tons of fish into 25 to 45 tons of fillets, 50 tons of frozen whole fish, 100 tons of fish meal, and 35 tons of vitamin rich oils.
Propulsion power is supplied by a Burmeister & Wain 574 VTBF-160 diesel developing 6,250 blade h.p. at 115 r.p.m.
Spurred to 17-knot speeds in an effort to elude pursuit, 40-foot to 100-foot whales weighing as much as 120 tons are swift and elusive targets even for modern whale chasers. Firing harpoons with time-fused grenade heads, Soviet whale chasers are singularly designed for high-speed maneuverability and maximum speeds in excess of the best the whale can attain. Powered by a diesel-electric aggregate of four 6-cylinder, 4-stroke, single-acting, airless injection, turbo-charged diesel engines driving four diesel, Type 5550-C, 460-volt generators and a d.c. double armature propeller-shaft drive motor, the chaser develops a total of 3,600 h.p. at 675 r.p.m. and 4,400 h.p. at 740 r.p.m. under emergency full ahead.
The Soviet designers claim extremely high maneuverability using a special sector electrical steering engine which allows hard-over-to-hard-over, 70°, within 20 seconds at either full speed ahead or astern, and complete turns through 360° within two lengths of the vessel.
Working electrical winches, designed with horizontal sectional shock absorbers to allay the stricken floundering of mortally wounded whales, provide a 12-ton haul at 180 feet to 215 feet per minute. Electrically-operated bow-and-stern capstans are used secondarily to moor and tow captured whales.
Soviet procurement from Danish yards. Danish yards have received Sudoimport orders for many specialized vessels. Burmeister & Wain’s Maskin-Og Skibsbyggeri yards in Copenhagen delivered 19 Pervomaisk-class refrigerated factory vessels through 1968. Four prototypes, the Skryplev, Davydov, Sovietsk, and Vitus Bering, were delivered to the U.S.S.R. in 1962-63. Fifteen others, slightly redesigned in the ultra-modern Burmeister & Wain yards that use sectional prefabricated construction, were delivered to Sudoimport by the end of 1968. Two of these were designated as training vessels for Soviet crews and fish-factory personnel.
Powered by a B&W 6-cylinder, 2-stroke, Type 50- VBF-90 diesel developing 3,100 b.h.p. at 200 r.p.m., the Pervomaisk class showed 14 knots during loaded speed trials.
Primarily designed for use as a refrigerated fish-factory processing vessel, the Pervomaisk class is also alternately used as a stern-trawler catch vessel.
The superstructure located amidships, contains cabins for ship’s officers, mess facilities, galley, and two-berth cabins for crew and fish factory personnel. The engine room and refrigerating plant are also located amidships with large refrigerated spaces fore and aft.
Deck rigging consists of two pair of self-supporting derrick posts, the bow derrick posts supporting the truck and combined radar antenna and signal mast. Four 3-ton and two 7-ton rated derricks are served by four 3-ton and two 5-ton winches, with the electric-hydraulic trawl winch rated at 15 tons.
Various types of loaded nets, left buoyed in the sea with radar reflectors attached by the catch vessels, are located and hauled aboard through the stern chute. Processed by a highly-automated, mechanized fish- factory, the catch is flash-frozen, packaged and stored in refrigerated holds. Processed fish liver oil is stored in special tanks, and dried, pulverized and bagged fish meal is banked in bunkers.
Gaining much unwanted publicity after being turned over to Sudoimport, the Golfstrim and Pavlovo, launched in 1964 and 1966, respectively, part of a five-vessel Russian fishing fleet operating 120 miles off the Argentine coast within their unilaterally-established 200-mile fisheries jurisdiction, were pursued and captured by Argentine naval aircraft and destroyers on 22 June 1968. During this incident, the Pavlovo received warning fire from naval aircraft as she attempted to escape during rough seas and limited visibility. Finally, the Pavlovo and the Golfstrim were escorted to port by the destroyers while the three remaining more fortunate trawlers escaped under cover of bad weather.
Soviet procurement from Polish yards. Maiakovskii class model B-15 and B-26 stern ramp trawlers and the huge 540-foot l.o.a. Severodvinsk-class fish factory motherships are constructed for Sudoimport at the Communist-controlled government shipyards at Gdansk and Gdynia, Poland, while 246-foot l.o.a. “Polnocny”-class rocket-launching landing craft and “Samara”-class hydrographic survey vessels are built on parallel ways. The Maiakovskii stern-ramp trawlers produced at these yards are design variations of this trawler which have been delivered in quantity from the Soviet continental shipyards at Nikolaev on the Black Sea since 1962.
The Nikolai Kononov, forerunner of the first 15 B-26 trawlers built for Sudoimport at the Gdynia shipyards, was delivered to her Soviet crew on 7 December 1966. Each year, 12 to 18 of this model are delivered to Sudoimport from these yards.
Designed with highly automated fish factory lines to process fillets and gutted whole fish through freezing, packing, and refrigerated storage, the vessel also contains a rendering plant producing fish liver oil, a heat treatment process for pulverized fish meal, and a complete canning operation.
Strengthened for work in ice conditions, the Maiakovskii was initially designed for North Atlantic operations. However, her refrigeration plant is also capable of operating in moderate and tropical climates, maintaining refrigerated hold temperatures to minus 25° Centigrade.
Extremely maneuverable at low speeds as a result of the Vostra Power rudder installation, the B-26 stern ramp trawler is powered by a Type STD48 Sulzer-Zgoda diesel developing 2,400 b.h.p. at 225 r.p.m. with a variable pitch propeller. Seventy-day operations ranging to 17,000 nautical miles at a 12.5 knot cruising speed are possible without refueling.
Equipped with the Soviet-designed horizontal-vertical fisheries and navigation sonar, sophisticated radar, and Danish designed autopilot, the Maiakovskii class is under constant modification as a result of actual working experience in the northern Atlantic Georges Banks and Grand Banks off the eastern United States, and the Bering Sea fisheries.
Motherships from the Gdansk yards. Sudoimport has ordered construction of several variations of the Severodvinsk-class mothership from the Gdansk shipyards since 1955. Eleven of the original B-62 models designed with the superstructure located amidships, were delivered through 1960 powered with twin steam turbines developing a total of 5,000 b.h.p. at 120 r.p.m. Using two fixed-pitch propellers, this model cruises at 13 knots.
Fifteen B-64 models were delivered to Soviet crews during 1963-65 redesigned with superstructures fore and aft to simplify the transfer of fisheries catch from trawlers moored alongside. The engine plant for this series consists of a diesel-electric aggregate of one 574VTBF160 diesel engine developing 6,250 b.h.p. at 115 r.p.m., using a single fixed-pitch propeller, with six Cegielski-Sulzer 8BAH, 400 kv-a and one 80-kv-a diesel electric generators. This combination provides a 75-day or 27,000-nautical mile operations range at 15 knots.
Configured with a stern ramp offset to port through which loaded nets left buoyed in the sea are hauled aboard, the B-64 can offload simultaneously as many as four trawlers while they are moored in parallel amidships.
The highly-automated and conveyorized factory operation consisting of six production lines processes daily 400 tons through filleting lines, mechanized beheading and gutting machines for round fish, three pickling and salting lines for herring, a liver oil reduction plant, a complete cannery operation, and two flash-freezing tunnels with individual capacity of 50 tons daily for freezing whole fish, herring, and fillet blocks. Excess catch, undersize fish and waste from all processing lines are pulverized, dried, and bagged as fish meal for commercial fertilizer.
The compression ammonia refrigeration plant installed on the main deck provides an overall capacity of about one million Kcal/h, maintaining refrigerated holds at –25° Centigrade flash freezing capability for 100 tons of fish daily through the two freezing tunnels, together with temperature control in provision stores, and air-conditioning furnished in all living, service, and recreational areas.
Functioning as a mothership or flag vessel for 20 to 40 trawlers, the Severodvinsk class provides 4-berth accommodations for her 248-man crew and work force, 30 extra 4-berth accommodations for crews transferring to and from attached trawler units, and complete hospital, barber, clothing, and utility services.
Catch vessels are supplied with spare fishing gear, are provisioned with fuel, fresh water, food, and are provided with technical assistance and the social amenities.
The Professor Baranov, launched in late 1967, was the prototype of the B-69 series which incorporates substantial modifications dictated by service experience and technical progress.
Included among these innovations were installation of the Vostra power rudder for greater maneuverability, a new type of multi-stage expansion evaporator capable of producing 100 tons of fresh water daily, rearrangement of the fish factory processing lines to add two cod filleting lines with a daily capability of 80 tons. A double production line processing 165 tons of salted herring daily was also added, as well as improvements to the fish meal processing plant increasing its capacity to 90 tons a day.
The helicopter facility available with each vessel of the three series extends the range of the horizontal/vertical fisheries sonar, and provides the additional capability to transfer injured personnel to hospital facilities on board the mothership and to supply provisions to far-ranging trawler units.
Soviet procurement from Finnish yards. Any discussion of the Baltic Sea shipyards would be incomplete without identifying the Sudoimport Agency procurements of icebreakers from the Finnish shipyards of Öy Wärtsila Ab at Helsinki; and a mention of the Soviet’s extensive shipbuilding complex at Leningrad in the Neva River delta on the Gulf of Finland.
Faced with the enormous problem of maintaining open sea lanes in the Baltic during the European winter, and navigation throughout the Arctic fall, winter, and spring months in the 6,500-mile Northern Sea Route from Archangel on the White Sea through the sea arms of the Arctic Ocean to its far-eastern terminus at Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, a bleakly inhospitable region of implacable ice packs, towering ice ridges and temperatures which seldom rise above freezing, the Russians operate about 50 vessels comprising the world’s largest and most modern icebreaker fleet.
Superlatives are necessary to describe Soviet scientific and technological advances in the field of specialized icebreaker vessels, as well as with the ships designed specifically for use in the fisheries.
Launched from the Wärtsila yards for the Soviets, the Kiev, Leningrad, Moskva, Murmansk and Vladivostok, 400.7-foot overall length, 80.3-foot beam, and 34.5-foot draft vessels are the world’s largest diesel-electric icebreakers. Powered by eight Sulzer diesels, these ships of 15,360 grt. develop 22,000 s.h.p. to cruise at 18 knots. Awaiting Sudoimport authorization to proceed with construction, Wärtsila has completed design drawings and resolved the technical problems surrounding the new building of an even larger diesel-electric icebreaker to provide 36,000 s.h.p.
Leningrad, the most modern and best equipped major Soviet port on the Baltic, connected by a 17-mile deepwater channel with Kotlin Island, the outer port and naval base of Kronstadt, is the site of Russia’s largest continental shipping complex, overshadowing their yards at Nikolaev on the Black Sea.
Here, the Kirov Elektrosia Works launched the world’s first nuclear-powered icebreaker propelled by three pressurized, water-cooled reactors producing 44,000 s.h.p. The 440-foot l.o.a. Lenin, capable of 18 knots, consumes only 5 ounces of nuclear fuel each day, and operates for a year and a half without refueling. This ship is principally used to assist the convoys trans-versing the Northern Sea Route.
The Artika, now building at the Kirov Works, with a 525-foot l.o.a., an 82-foot beam, and loaded draft of 29 feet, will develop a 25-knot cruising speed with nuclear reactor steam turbine propulsion. Incorporating hangar space for ten ice-reconnaissance helicopters, the Artika is designed for 3-to-4-knot continual movement through 8-foot pack ice, creating a 100-foot swath.
The singular importance of protein availability to a nation in peace or war cannot be overemphasized. Massive disruption of protein distribution under wartime conditions provides an indirect confrontation creating havoc in the civilian populace and, in turn, the military forces. The most recent graphic illustration of the results of such protein loss is the tragedy of the Biafran peoples during the Nigerian civil war. It is therefore a powerful physical and physiological weapon.
Where heavy dependence is made on marine protein derived from fish and fisheries products, the fishing fleets become targets of opportunity, if not primary targets.
Among the key fishery nations heavily dependent on fisheries protein are Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. Of these, China principally exploits its inland and coastal fisheries, over 70% of the fisheries products consumed in the United States is imported, while Russia—closely followed by the Japanese—exploits fisheries around the world.
Gross mismanagement and pollution of its inland and coastal fisheries have now forced the Soviet Union to exploit heavily fisheries many hundreds and thousands of miles from its continental ports.
Even with close protection being furnished, the production of a nation’s coastal fisheries would experience a drastic decline in yield if exposed to constant harassment by air and sea. Similarly, nations primarily dependent on high seas fisheries would find their fleets highly vulnerable, almost impossible to protect against attack by air, surface, or subsurface forces.
The Caspian Sea Basin, Russia’s most productive inland fishery for the past hundred years, has been virtually destroyed. Diverting and retaining waters of the Volga, Ufa, and Kama rivers from the Caspian basin into numerous large hydro-electric dam reservoirs, together with the major pollution problems surrounding millions of gallons of untreated sewage spewed into these rivers from the highly populated and industrialized middle Volga region, has resulted in catastrophic conditions dramatically reducing the fishery yields from these rivers and the Caspian basin.
Across the northern face of Russia, temperatures and weather in the Arctic sea arms vary only in degree of severity. During the fall, winter, and spring, the prolonged Polar night brings characteristic crackling-sharp freezing conditions as well as the dreaded 90 to 120 m.p.h. Bora wind velocities, in addition to frequent blizzards. Fishery activities move only during the brief Arctic summer months of July and August, hampered by dense fogs and bitter cold. Soviet fishermen assigned to these seas receive premium wages, and ship and equipment maintenance costs soar.
With the virtual loss of its historic fisheries in the south and east severely restricted owing to climactic conditions in the north and east, the Soviet drive to new fisheries resources historically belonging to other nations has been most impressive.
Mass fishing methods, typified by otter trawl and mid-water or layer trawl, and purse seining applied by large fleets of modern commercial fishing vessels specifically designed for the functions of catch, factory processing, and refrigerated transport, are the direct result of Soviet capital investments exceeding 3.6 billion dollars since World War II.
Unified under the direction of modern business systems management, the Soviet government-controlled fishing industry receives the additional benefit of continuing capital investments averaging a third of a billion dollars annually. These funds are channeled into sustaining research and development of vessels, nets, and gear; into educational institutes for technicians and fishery workers; as well as being used in support of constant improvement in landing and processing facilities at the major ports on the Soviet Union’s 27,600-mile coastline.
Undoubtedly realizing the vulnerability of their high-seas fishing fleets under wartime conditions, the Soviets sweep the seas, turning back nothing in the way of trash fish, undersize fingerlings or waste from the filleting and whole fish processing.
Today, with little or no restrictions on their fishery operations, the Soviet Union is systematically over-exploiting the world’s last mobile protein food resource in fisheries located in every sea and ocean.
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A graduate of the U. S. Air University at Dayton, Ohio in the field of contract management, Mr. Oetting spent the years from 1946 to 1956 as a contracting specialist for the U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. Joining the Aerojet-General Corp. in Sacramento, Mr. Oetting co-ordinated contracting functions for the Terrier, Tartar, and Polaris missile systems. He began his research into the study of Soviet commercial fishery operations during an overflight of concentrations of the Russian vessels in a light plane off the coast of Oregon in 1966. The expanding study into Communist-controlled countries has provided the material for Mr. Oetting’s freelance work as an author and photographer.
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Full Speed Ahead!
After swinging on the hook for several weeks in Okinawa’s Buckner Bay after the fall of Japan, our ship finally received orders. As she steamed through the crowded channel, a pall of black smoke indicated something was wrong in the engine room. As our speed began to drop, the skipper rang up “Full.”
The engine room promptly answered by ringing up a request for “Stop.” A heated exchange of bells and counter bells ensued, with the Captain finally bellowing down the voice tube: “Chief, I don’t care what the problem is, we can’t stop here.”
“Well, Captain,” the Chief Engineer was heard to reply, “I’ll be glad to tell the engine to keep going, but it’s already stopped.”
—Contributed by Commander Leonard T. Daley, U. S. Navy
Read the Labels First
The cook who had the galley watch in the USS DeHaven was continually receiving complaints about the labels on the boiled eggs on the serving line. The men claimed the soft-boiled eggs were hard and the hard-boiled eggs were soft. In spite of the cook’s efforts to please, the criticisms continued. Finally, he hit upon another solution. Next time the crew came through the mess line, the signs over the boiled eggs read: “hard” and “harder.” This satisfied the men, and the cook was blamed no more.
—Contributed by Raymond G. Swenson, DK1, U. S. Navy
(The U. S. Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the PROCEEDINGS.)