MV Captain Kurbatskiy

MV Captain Kurbatskiy

MV Captain Kurbatskiy (Капитан Курбацкий) was a Russian SA-15 class cargo ship originally known as Nizhneyansk (Нижнеянск) after a port of the same name. The ship was delivered from Valmet Vuosaari shipyard in 1983 as the second ship of a series of 19 icebreaking multipurpose arctic freighters built by Valmet and Wärtsilä, another Finnish shipbuilder, for the Soviet Union for year-round service in the Northern Sea Route. These ships, designed to be capable of independent operation in arctic ice conditions, were of extremely robust design and had strengthened hulls resembling those of polar icebreakers.

In 1996, after 13 years of service under Soviet and later Russian Far East Shipping Company (FESCO), the ship was sold to Bandwidth Shipping Corporation, who renamed it Magdalena Oldendorff and later chartered it as a support ship for the 20th Indian Antarctic Expedition. In 2003 the ship changed hands again and the new owner, Crystal Waters Shipping, renamed it Ocean Luck. Since 2010 the ship sailed as Captain Kurbatskiy under the ownership of Fern Shipping. Decommissioned and sold for scrapping in Alang, India, in 2011, Captain Kurbatskiy arrived at the breakers on 12 November 2011.