KALININGRAD, July 29 (Itar-Tass) —— The second oceanographic research vessel will be built for the Russian Navy by 2014, head of the Defense Ministry’s deepwater research department Vice-Admiral Alexei Burilichev told reporters in Kaliningrad on Friday.
He attended the launch of the first vessel of Project 11982, the Seliger, at the Yantar shipyard. The vessel will test new manned and unmanned deepwater apparatuses, acoustic equipment and instruments for the World Ocean depths measurement and oceanic bed studies.
“If the project develops as planned, we will have the second ship by 2014,” he said.
Apart from fulfilling its research mission, the Seliger can evaluate the condition of pipelines and cable laid across the sea and search for sunken objects.
The testing will start in October in the Baltic Sea, and the ship will be handed over to the Defense Ministry in the end of this year. It will be based in Temryuk on the Taman Peninsula of the Black Sea.
The shipyard started building the Seliger in July 2009. The ship has the length of 59.7 meters, the width of 10.8 meters and the displacement of 1,117 tonnes. It may travel at the speed of 13 knots to 1,000 miles with a crew of 16 and nine researchers onboard.
The Yantar shipyard was established on July 8, 1945. It is focused on the construction of small and medium ships for the Navy and civilian clients and on ship repairs. Its main areas include commercial shipbuilding, naval shipbuilding, metal structures manufacturing, ship repair and conversion, shipbuilding from aluminum alloys and mechanical engineering production.
The shipyard has built 154 warships and over 500 civilian vessels in 66 years. The government in the person of the United Shipbuilding Corporation has the controlling stake in Yantar.