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Soviet ice-breaker
The
Georgiy Sedov
(
Russian
:
Георгий Седов
) was a
Soviet
ice-breaker fitted with steam engines. She was originally the
Newfoundland
seal fishery support vessel
Beothic
and was renamed after
Russian
captain and polar explorer
Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov
in 1915.
This icebreaker became famous as the first Soviet
drifting ice station
, the culmination of a decade of high-latitude exploration.
Vessel History
[
edit
]
Beothic
was built in 1908?09 at
Glasgow
and was engaged as a support vessel in sealing until her sale to the Imperial Russian Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 1915. Renamed
Georgiy Sedov
, she was inherited by the new Soviet government following the
Russian Civil War
.
In 1929 icebreaker
Sedov
went on the "High-latitude Government Expedition" to
Franz Josef Land
carrying Soviet scientists.
In the summer of 1937
icebreaker
Sadko
sailed from
Murmansk
. Its original goal was to sail to Henrietta, Zhokhow and Jeanette Islands, in the
De Long group
and carry out scientific research. The purpose of the expedition was to find out if the Northern Sea Route could be used for regular shipping and to explore the complex
Nordenskiold Archipelago
. The Soviet naval authorities changed the plans and the ice-breaker was sent instead to help ships in distress in the
Kara
and
Laptev Seas
. The
Sadko
became trapped in fast ice at 75°17'N and 132°28'E in the region of the
New Siberian Islands
. Another two Soviet icebreakers, the
Sedov
and the
Malygin
which were in the same area researching the ice conditions, became trapped by sea ice as well and drifted helplessly. Owing to persistent bad weather conditions, part of the stranded crew and some of the scientists could only be rescued in April 1938. Only on August 28, 1938, could the
icebreaker
Yermak
free two of the three ships at 83°4'N and 138°22'E. The third ship, the
Sedov
, had to be left to drift in the ice and was transformed into a scientific polar station.
Sedov
kept drifting northwards in the ice towards the
Pole
, very much like
Fridtjof Nansen
's
Fram
had done in 1893?96. In doing so they achieved a record northern latitude in 1939.
[1]
There were 15 crew aboard, led by Captain
Konstantin Badygin
and W. Kh. Buinitzki. The scientists aboard took 415 astronomical measurements, 78 electromagnetic observations, as well as 38 depth measurements by drilling the thick polar ice during their 812-day stay aboard the
Sedov
. They were freed between
Greenland
and
Svalbard
by the icebreaker
Joseph Stalin
, the biggest icebreaker of the Soviet fleet at that time, on January 18, 1940.
Fate
[
edit
]
Withdrawn from service in 1967,
Sedov
was scrapped at
Hamburg
by Eckhardt & Co.
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Francis E. McMurtrie and Raymond V.B. Blackman,
Jane's Fighting Ships 1949-50
, p. 297. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1949