SAFEWIN - Safety of winter navigation in dynamic ice
Overview
Background & policy context:
Tanker traffic to and from Russian terminals in the eastern Baltic is increasing. Similar change is likely to occur in the Okhotsk Sea, Russian western Arctic and possibly also in the White Sea. Large oil tankers navigating in the Baltic, Okhotsk Sea and in the western Russian Arctic show a hull shape that is not especially suitable for ice breaking. And hull rupture would be catastrophic.
The Baltic Icebreaker Management is making every effort to increase awareness for winter operations and ice conditions, and also awareness about ice service products. However, Finnish and Swedish icebreaker services have observed that the crews of ice strengthened vessels do not have the necessary experience for winter navigation. The suggestion is to navigate using ice charts and ice forecasts. That will reduce the risk of human error in interpreting ice conditions and selecting a route through arctic waters.
Objectives:
The SAFEWIN project aims to develop an efficient ice compression and ice dynamics forecasting system. This system will be particularly efficient in case of large oil tankers navigating in arctic seas.
Furthermore, the SAFEWIN project aims to understand the relationship between ship structures and the risk of compressive ice damages. This knowledge will be used to redesign part of the structure and to achieve the best possible resistance to damage.
The main objectives of SAFEWIN are:
- Develop methods to predict the ice compression operationally. This objective is related to sea ice dynamics models that have been developed and are further developed to be suited for the operational task;
- Develop quantities that can be applied to describing the ship progress and loading in ice and that can be obtained from ice dynamics predictions;
- Verify the accuracy and applicability of the ship-scale quantities obtained from meso-scale ice dynamics models;
- Develop an operational procedure to describe ice compression to be broadcasted to shipping;
- Apply the developed ice compression forecasting procedure to arctic waters for oil exploration/production facilities.
Methodology:
The project is dived into small sub projects, as follows:
- Project management;
- Observation campaign;
- Forecasting methods;
- Compression in ship-scale;
- Operative forecasting;
- Risk control;
- Ice management;
- Dissemination.
SAFEWIN will create a scientific basis for operative forecasting of ice motion and compression in ice. The final reporting will make sure that all the scientific elements of the project are disseminated to the public in the form of laboratory reports, scientific journals and maritime magazines. The knowledge on the maritime risks involved in ice navigation, the means to decrease the risks and interaction between the risk and probability of damage level with the ice conditions and operational procedures must also be documented and disseminated to maritime authorities and ice services.
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