Estonia, Port, Transport

Botnica has been working in area of the Gulf of Finland near Sillamae and Kunda since February 22. The vessel has so far provided icebreaking services to 6 ships, Botnica at present is in the Sillamae area, two cargo vessels are currently waiting to exit the port there and one vessel is expected at the gathering point at sea on 

Monday evening in order to head to Sillamae, the Maritime Administration said.

Botnica's fuel consumption while rendering the icebreaking service over the course of four days has been a total of 87,000 liters and daily consumption will increase when the ice situation worsens.

Ice condition in the Gulf of Finland at present are such that the entire gulf east of the Tallinn-Helsinki route is virtually covered with ice. The areas of Tallinn Bay and Muuga Bay are currently still covered with new and young ice, the thickness of which is up to 5 centimeters, but ice north of the central line of the Gulf of Finland toward the Finnish coast is significantly thicker and there are also moving ice fields, the Maritime Administration said.

According to the weather forecast, northeastern winds with speeds of up to 17 meters per second are expected and it is expected to bring ice masses toward the Estonian coast and into the Tallinn and Muuga bays.

The thickness of the ice east of the Tallinn-Helsinki route is 10-20 centimeters and it is also partly packed. The icebreaker must convoy the vessels from the Sillamae port basin until the ships' movement route and break a channel for them into the ice for approximately 54 miles, which means that the convoying of the vessels from the port basin until the aforementioned route takes up to 6 hours.

Initially, the Maritime Administration is planning to send off the back-up icebreaker Tarmo from the Hundipea port toward Sillamae on the afternoon of February 28.

Icebreaking is also continuing in Parnu Bay. The ice border there is 30 miles southwest of the breakwaters of Parnu, the thickness of ice in the bay is 15-25 centimeters and the outer 2.5-3.5 miles of the icebound area consists of heavily packed ice, which no vessel can go through without the icebreaker's assistance.

The tug boat Protector, which has been working off Parnu since Jan. 31, has as of Monday morning assisted ships 84 times, while EVA-316 since the start of icebreaking until Jan. 31 assisted vessels on 31 occasions. The total number of times icebreakers have assisted ships is 115.

Altogether 128,000 liters of fuel has been spent on icebreaking in Parnu Bay and a technical failure of the EVA-317 multipurpose vessel is being eliminated at present. The Maritime Administration hopes that the icebreaker will be back in working order in the first half of this week.