Soviet and Russian Research Vessels

[CJGibson]

Could some-one in the know explain what the research ships Akademik Ioffee and Akademik Vavilov were built to do?

I've just been on the Ioffe and there is some interesting kit still onboard. The standard answer was that they were built in 1989 for sound propagation trials, Ioffe the transmitter and Vavilov the receiver.

Any additional background would be most interesting. Apparently the Vavilov is banned from US ports.

Thanks in advance

Chris

 

[gollevainen]

I have an old copy of Defence Systems International '93 by Sterling Puplications. It has an article written by Timo-Pekka Jäntti from then Holming ltd Eletronics and the article is about using modern multibeam echo sounder sonars in oceanographic mapping and surveying. the article comes along with a drawing of Akademic Ioffe as examble where such mapping sonar equipment is located on research ships. Akademic Ioffe was build by Holming Yard at Rauma and i presume the Holming eletronics was part of the same corporation. The article doesen't mention any actuall equipment nor wheter the sonar facitilities onboard Ioffe were Finnish build but I presume if they would have been, there wouldn't be much information released into public, specially if the Soviet use of these equipment included more ..."strategical" purposes.
After the cold war, all Finno-Soviet joint projects and shipbuilding activities have been kept out of public as much as possible and only us shiplovers and such seems to be even aware of these activities. One book about the subject has been published, but it only covers those ships that were serving directly in the navy and doesen't mention Akademik Ioffe.

 

[CJGibson]

Thanks for that. Makes sense.

The antenna is still in the moonpool.

Apparently, when engaged in the search for Franklin's ships last year, the Canadian developers of the side-scan sonar-equipped autonomous underwater vehicle were most reluctant to install it on the Ioffe.

Chris

 

[GTX]

Interesting - I have been on both ships as well.

 

[Ynot]

these two ships were to be the 'modern' Soviet versions of the old Sergey Vavilov & Pyotr Lebedev. Very interesting ships built as cargo vessels in 1957 and later converted into research ships. They were run by the USSR Academy of Science and were associated with classified submarine work.



The modern ships arrived just too late for the Soviet Union and for their original intention - Non-Acoustic detection work (think of the sensors on the front of the sail on the Sierra II and Akula SSN's). They therefore became employed on eco-tourism duties and had extra accommodation built into them.
... allegedly ...
B)