 Yermak on the Baltic Sea before 1917 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
   Russian Empire/RSFSR/USSR | |
| Name | Yermak |
| Builder | N. I. Yankovsky, R. I. Runeberg, Armstrong Whitworth and others |
| Yard number | 684 |
| Laid down | 1897 |
| Launched | 17 October 1898 |
| Completed | 1899 |
| Acquired | 1899 |
| Out of service | 1963 |
| Fate | Scrapped 1964 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement | 8730 tons |
| Length | 97.5 m |
| Beam | 21.6 m |
| Draught | 7.3 m |
| Ice class | Icebreaker |
| Installed power | 9000 hp |
| Propulsion | 4 shaft, 8 VTE steam engines, 6 boilers |
| Speed | 12 knots |
| Crew | 102 |
Yermak[1] (Russian:Ермак,IPA:[Jɛrmak]) was a Russian and later Sovieticebreaker. It was the first polar icebreaker in the world, having a strengthened hull shaped to ride over and crushpack ice.
An earlier vessel, the schooner Yermak, was commissioned for the 1862 attempt to find theYenissei river delta byPaul Theodor von Krusenstern, by navigating fromMurmansk through theKara Sea to the destination, but was shipwrecked before obtaining success.[2]
Yermak was built for theImperial Russian Navy under the supervision ofvice-admiralS. O. Makarov by the members of his commission, which includedD. I. Mendeleev, engineers N. I. Yankovsky and R. I. Runeberg, admiralF. F. Wrangel, among others.[3] It was built inNewcastle upon Tyne at itsLow Walker yard and launched in 1898. She was named after the famous Russian explorer ofSiberia,Don CossackatamanYermak Timofeyevich.
She was commissioned on 17 October 1898. She arrived inKronstadt on 4 March 1899 after breaking through ice and a formal reception was held to mark her arrival. Later in 1899 she reached 81°21'N north ofSpitsbergen. She had been constructed to break through heavy ice (up to 2 m in thickness).
Yermak had been used in the winter of 1899–1900 to set up the first radio communication link in Russia betweenKotka andGogland (Suursaar) island (distance 47 km). In 1900 she came to the aid of the cruiserGromoboi which had grounded in the Baltic.
Between 1899 and 1911Yermak sailed in heavy ice conditions for more than 1000 days.Yermak was initially part of the fleet sailing to theBattle of Tsushima but irresponsible manoeuvring resulted in shots being fired across her bow before she was dismissed from the fleet in early October 1904O.S.[4]
During World War I she assisted the Baltic Fleet during theIce Cruise when the fleet was evacuated from Helsinki to Kronstadt in February 1918.
During World War II theYermak was mobilised again and took part in theevacuation of Hanko naval base. She was armed with two 102 mm, two 76 mm, four 45 mm and four machine guns.
Yermak served with different branches of the Russian and Soviet Navy and Merchant Marine up until 1964, becoming one of the longest-serving icebreakers in the world. An island in theNordenskiöld Archipelago was named after her.
By 1963 it was scrapped, despite efforts to preserve it as a museum piece.[5]
A monument to the icebreakerYermak was unveiled inMurmansk In November 1965 – this included mosaic panels and the original anchor on the pedestal.
Another icebreaker with the nameYermak was built for the Soviet Union at theWärtsiläHelsinki shipyard, Finland in 1974.Russia employs an icebreaker namedYermak in the Baltic Sea as late as 2010.[6]
