ON EARTH AND IN THE SKY

Sea charts and sailing directions

We feel helpless without them

Evgeniy Kluev
Head of the State Hydrographic Enterprise
Ministry of Transport (Mintrans) of Russia

        Among the dozens of St. Petersburg organisations taking part in Arctic commercial development, our hydrographic organisation is among those without which it is impossible to carry out river and sea shipping in the Northern Sea Route region. Together with our branches in the ports of Arkhangelsk, Dickson Island, Igarka, Khatanga, Tiksi, Cape Verde, Pevek, Providence Bay we have been ensuring safe navigation in the Arctic for more than 65 years. We have executed topographical surveys along the coastal zone of the mainland, the islands and the big Siberian rivers such as Yenisei, Khatanga, Lena, Indigirka and Kolyma covering a distance of more than 45 thousand kilometres and have also carried out soundings of more than 4 mln.km. on the shelf of the polar seas. We have thus eliminated more than 1200 navigationally dangerous instances.
        We have collected for many years the voluminous material, which has now become the national property of Russia. The length of the traditional route is equal to 3500 miles (6475 km.) while the length of the recommended routes for safe navigation is four times or so greater. Soundings continue on the Northern Sea Route. The purpose of these sea studies is to create new navigational charts, sailing directions, manuals, and handbooks. All ships are equipped with them. The routes themselves are provided with navigational equipment to maintain them at up-to-date level and to execute pilot steering on the rivers of Yenisei, Khatanga, Anabar and Kolyma. Navigators are informed about conditions and constant monitoring of vessels is carried out to prevent the contamination of the Arctic seas from oil products.
        However, we have only 21 hydrographic vessels and 10 auxiliary ones. The situation in Tiksinskaya and Kolymskaya hydrological bases is critical. We have no vessels to operate in the Bykovskiy fairway and the hydrographic vessel "Dunai" working on the Lena has no classification documents and is soon to be written-off. The fleet regeneration program provided us with three new vessels, which should have been delivered to us three years ago. What happened? The project has been ready for a long time. There are shipbuilding plants. Yet there is no money as usual. Nevertheless we continue the broad complex of works, studying different aspects of the Arctic water areas. For example, our hydrographic expedition is undertaking floor terrain surveys of Shtokmanovskoye and Prirazlomnoye deposits, which are of great practical importance. The problem lies in that we are not employing our full capabilities.
        Of course we would have more possibilities if the problems related not only to the present but also to the future of the northern hydrographic service were solved more rapidly. For example, for more than 25 years we have used radionuclide energetic installations as a power source for navigation. This system automates almost all navigational devices avoiding the use of navigational polar stations. But the life of almost all the radionuclide energetic installations (381 installations total) will come to an end in 2003. Mintrans and Minatom are aware of this and of the fact that the available navigational system does not even meet today's requirements.
        There are a good deal of other problems too. For example, it is necessary not only to develop monitoring and adjustment stations but also to create electronic navigational charts corresponding to the requirements of International Maritime and Hydrographic organisations. The problem of automate ship handling has yet to be solved. The ship electronic cartographic TRIS-100 system successfully tested on seven vessels and icebreakers was developed and certified three years ago. This new navigational system will allow us to give up the obligatory pilot steering of vessels on Yenisei, Khatanga, Anabar and Kolyma. The creation of a network consisting of 14 monitoring and adjustment stations of global satellite navigational systems on the Russian Arctic sea sector has yet to be finished in order to provide safe navigation conditions on the Northern Sea Route.
        This list of course, does not speak of all that has still to be done in both the present and the future.