United Shipbuilding Corporation presented its ice class Arcliner arctic cruise and expedition vessel project at the 4th Arctic – Regions Forum.
The liner project is aimed for organizing expeditions and developing domestic cruise shipping in the Russian Arctic and establishing new cruise routes in the Antarctic.
Arcliner is designed for operating in harsh ice conditions. The Arc6 vessel is 163 LOA and 23.5 beam with a sailing endurance up to 35 days. It has a passenger capacity of 292 and a crew of 192.
Depending on the season the vessel can be deployed in various areas: in spring and summer, she can make cruises from Murmansk to Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya archipelago, Norway and Iceland, and from Reykjavik to Greenland and Jan Mayen Island.
A more lengthy scenario could be a cruise by the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Ankorage in Alaska or to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia.
In autumn and winter, the liner could sail from Punta-Arenas to the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic coast. The vessel could also be deployed for expedition voyages between the Arctic and the Antarctic.
The ice class of Arc6 allows the vessel to sail in the Arctic in sparse one-year ice up to 1.3 m thick in summer and autumn and up to 1.1 m thick in winter and spring.
The vessel will use LNG and low-sulphur diesel fuel and has a speed up to 17 knots.
Photo: courtesy of USC