Project 21300 rescue ship Igor Belousov being built at JSC Admiralteyskie Verfi shipyard in St. Petersburg will be launched on Oct 30, an insider at the yard told Central Navy Portal.
Works on the new-generation seagoing rescue ship started at the Almaz Design Bureau early in 2003. Technical project was finished and approved by defense ministry late in 2004.
The motivation for development of a new up-to-date rescue ship with deep-sea equipment was an accident happened to nuclear submarine Kursk in Aug 2000, when critical state of Russian Navy’s emergency service came to light.
Admiralteyskie Verfi won the defense ministry’s tender for construction a Project 21300 ship. Igor Belousov was laid down at the shipyard on Dec 24, 2005.
Works on the ship were going on with considerable breaks due to non-systematic financing and delays in designing of the ship’s basic rescue asset, i.e. deep-sea diving system GVK-450. New contract for completion of the Delfin-class rescue ship Igor Belousov was signed by defense ministry and Admiralteyskie Verfi shipyard in Nov 2011 and provides the ship’s delivery in 2014.
Presently, the ship is 40% completed. Some parts of the deck erection and DIVEX deep-sea rescue system delivered by JSC Tetis Pro will be assembled and mounted afloat.
Alongside with that, the shipyard builds Bester-1 deep-sea submersible (Project 18271) with operating depth over 700 meters. Igor Belousov is planned to have this submersible onboard as well.
Main purpose of the rescue ship is lifting of crews from distressed submarines either lying on seabed or drifting on surface; supply of surface ships and submarines with high-pressure air, electric power, and life saving equipment. Another task is searching and examination of distressed objects, possibly within international maritime rescue groups.
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Source: RusNavy , October 18, 2012