Arctic Shuttle Tanker

So on the coldest day –so far–of the 2012-2013 winter, what kind of vessel might you expect to see in the sixth boro–maybe a “super strength icebreaking tanker?”  If so, Mikhail Ulyanov matches your expectation.   There’s no ice on NYC waters, so if you imagine this vessel breaking 1.5-meter ice, you start to have an appreciation for cold in places where it’s really cold, polar cold and dark.   Click here for a foto of her namesake AND an aerial view of her deck.

Can anyone explain what appears to be a house in the bow?

Is it that this vessel operates in seas so cold that areas like the after portion of the bridge are glassed-in and heated?

Writing on the side of vessel translates as “Sovcomflot,” and 0nly once before have I seen Cyrillic alphabet on a ship in NYC, although I can’t remember the details.

Here’s a frontal view of the “bowhouse.”

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Let me add a note here from Tommy Bryceland in Scotland   “The house on the bow of the Russian tanker is the Single Point mooring position.  This attaches via a hose or hose’s over the bow to a Single point mooring bouy (SPBM) out at a remote place at sea usually over an oil field. Covered in like this is unusual but will be done so for extreme cold temps working.  Im pretty sure this tanker drives astern INTO the ice and churns the ice with its props. That is why you have the strange wheelhouse shape.”  Tommy–thanks much.

By the way, this marks tugster post 2000!  Click here to see post 1000.