Study of ship speed regimes in the Arctic sea ice conditions

Abstract

An increase of commercial navigation in the Arctic along the Northern Sea routes will involve the use of large-capacity vessels of high ice-class during the non-escorted transit. To ensure the safety of Arctic navigation, it is necessary to have unbiased data on the influence of ice thickness on vessels’ speed and maneuverability. The paper suggests using a geoinformation system which includes data on speed and routes of the vessels of various capacities, as well as data of remote sensing of the earth about ice conditions. Two parts of traditional routes in the western part of the Russian Arctic were considered: the sea crossing from the Barents Sea to the Kara Sea through the Kara Strait and the transition from the Barents Sea to the Kara Sea through the Cape of Desire. A joint study of this data (layers) on the example of winter navigation of 2018 provides detailed information on the trends of speed reduction of ships under the conditions of fully consolidated ice. Based on the results of the study, the results are presented for four groups of vessels with different gross tonnage, capacity, ice pass and draft. To compare the results, the measured velocities were normalized to relative ones, which made it possible to identify common dependencies and trends. The availability of archival data on measurements of ice thickness in the geographic area under study and the predictive models for increasing ice thickness during the winter time mad it possible to develop adequate methods aimed at estimating the change in the properties of ice by varying the speed of vessels of various classes on the routes in the water area of the Northern Sea Route. Statistical processing of vessel speed in the ice fields made it possible to identify the sameness of the speed-reduction trends for the main groups of vessels and the distinctive features associated with the vessel’s power and the use of icebreaker support.