January 22 2024

The Antarctic voyage will last approximately until mid-March 2024

FESCO’s diesel-electric ship Vasily Golovnin delivered cargo to the Indian Bharati research station. This is the first point of the 2023-2024 Antarctic expedition carried out by FESCO for the National Center for Polar and Ocean Research of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of India (NCPOR), the press service of the transport group reports.

The ship left Cape Town at the end of December 2023 and arrived at Bharati station on January 17. Vasily Golovnin delivered the necessary cargo, provisions, fuel and a new shift of Indian polar explorers. The diesel-electric ship will take on board Indian researchers whose shift on the Bharati has come to an end, as well as household and technical waste that has accumulated at the station over the year.

“The diesel-electric ship will stay here for about two weeks. After that Vasily Golovnin will move to the second point of the expedition – the Indian Maitri station. According to our experts, the weather conditions this season are more favorable, the destruction of fast ice around the mainland is much more active than last year,” commented Nikolai Chvertko, director of the FESCO branch in Vladivostok.

The ship is scheduled to depart for the Maitri research station at the end of January. In total, the voyage will last approximately until mid-March 2024.

This is the sixth expedition carried out to supply Indian Antarctic stations, and the third under the five-year contract signed by FESCO and NCPOR in October 2021. Before being sent to Antarctica, specialists from the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) examined the diesel-electric vessel Vasily Golovnin for class compliance and confirmed its readiness to operate off the coast of the ice continent.

Source: https://portnews.ru/news/358701/