Development and construction The development of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers began in the mid-1980s when the
Finnish National Board of Navigation launched a project to find secondary uses for the new vessels it was planning to build as a replacement for some of the oldest icebreakers. Until then the Finnish icebreakers had been designed solely for escort operations in ice-infested waters and their specialized hull form was not suitable for open water. As a result, the existing icebreakers had an effective operational time of only three to five months per year and spent the summer season moored at
Katajanokka in
Helsinki. A multipurpose application of the new icebreakers would thus result in a better utilization of the vessels and, assuming they were chartered by a commercial third party during the summer, improve the economics of the state-owned fleet. However, the concept did not become reality until the early 1990s, when the Norwegian company
Ugland Offshore AS (later
DSND Offshore AS) became involved in the project to develop and construct multipurpose icebreakers that could be used for offshore operations in the
oil fields during the summer months. The concept was developed by the Board of Navigation together with a Finnish consulting engineering company
ILS. The summer period operational profile of the vessel was defined by the offshore markets' needs. Most of all, there was a demand for vessels that could conduct flexible pipe and cable laying and trenching and ploughing of cables and pipelines. Other defined tasks were e.g. cable repair work, anchor handling and the moving of offshore oil drilling platforms, semi-submersible units, and other offshore units, and transportation of deck cargo. The novel hull form was tested and adjusted in an extensive ice model test series at VTT's ship laboratory. The testing concentrated also especially on maneuvering characteristics. Later the full scale ice trials were conducted in March 1993 in Northern Baltic off the cities of Oulu and Kemi, and they proved that the design criteria was achieved in icebreaking and ridge penetration capability ahead and astern, whereas the assistance and maneuvering capability in ice exceeded expectations. In 1997 a third multipurpose icebreaker was ordered from Finnyards. The ship, delivered in 1998 as
Botnica, was slightly smaller than the previous Finnish multipurpose icebreakers and had several other differences, such as twelve
Caterpillar high-speed diesel engines instead of medium-speed units and
Azipod electric azimuth thrusters instead of the ducted Z-drive Aquamasters. In 2012,
Botnica was sold to
Port of Tallinn,
Estonia.
Career with the Hydralift heave compensated crane on the aft deck installed When
Fennica and
Nordica entered service in 1993 and 1994, it was agreed that the multipurpose icebreakers would be chartered for offshore duties about 180 days per year during the ice-free season. For the winter months, they would return to Finland for escort icebreaking duties in the Baltic Sea or, if there was no need to deploy the whole state-owned icebreaker fleet during particularly mild winters, for lay-up in a Finnish port. In 2002,
Halliburton Offshore and DSND combined their resources and the exclusive charter of the multipurpose icebreakers was transferred to the new company,
Subsea 7, that held it until 2004. In November 1994, the then-new
Nordica and the Swedish minesweeper
HMS Furusund raised the
bow visor of the car ferry
Estonia that capsized and sank on 28 September 1994 with a loss of 852 lives. Following the reorganization of the Finnish Maritime Administration in 2004, the ownership and management of the state-owned vessels was transferred to a newly founded state-owned enterprise,
Finstaship. Later a separate company,
GDV Maritime AS, was established together with Norwegian partners and handled the global marketing of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers until 2008. During this time, the focal point in the marketing of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers shifted more to offshore activities and the ships returned to their home waters only if they were needed for icebreaking. In October 2011, Arctia Offshore and the
Finnish Transport Agency signed a five-year contract with an optional two-year extension regarding the use of the multipurpose icebreakers
Fennica and
Nordica in the Finnish waters during the winter months. Prior to this, Arctia Icebreaking had already signed a similar contract for the conventional Finnish icebreakers. The decision to charter the Finnish icebreakers to support Arctic offshore drilling was widely criticized due potential environmental damage in case of
oil spill. On 16 March 2012, some 52
Greenpeace activists from five different countries boarded
Fennica and
Nordica at
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard to protest Shell's drilling operations in Alaska. The protests continued on
May Day when the 52 activists from 15 different countries tried again to prevent
Nordica from leaving Helsinki. On 3 May, while
Nordica was passing the Swedish island of
Öland in the Baltic Sea, six Greenpeace activists boarded the icebreaker, forcing the vessel to stop at
Karlskrona where the protesters were arrested by the Swedish police and coast guard. Finally, in the following night 14 activists forced
Nordica to carry out evasive manoeuvres in the sea region between
Denmark and
Germany by stopping boats in the middle of the shipping lane in front of the icebreaker and even swimming in the sea.
Nordica supported Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea in 2012, 2013 and 2015; the 2014 drilling season was cancelled. In November 2012, the multipurpose icebreakers became the first Finnish icebreakers to sail through the
Northern Sea Route when the vessels returned to Finland for the 2012 icebreaking season. During the transit, the multipurpose icebreakers were escorted by Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers. In 2013,
Fennica and
Nordica returned to Finland via the Northern Sea Route for the second time. In 2015, after Shell had decided to stop drilling in Alaska,
Fennica and
Nordica returned to Europe via the
Northwest Passage. This late-season eastbound unescorted transit was the first time the Finnish icebreakers have sailed through the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago and was claimed to save both time and money. The ships arrived to
Nuuk, Greenland, on 31 October 2015. In late 2016,
Nordica was chartered to support oil and gas production activities in the
Sea of Okhotsk. The vessel left Finland on 30 December and remained in the
Sakhalin region until May 2017. The icebreaker then returned to Europe via the Northwest Passage, carrying an international group of scientists and journalists on "Arctic 100" expedition from the west coast of Canada to Greenland.
Nordica left Vancouver on 5 July and arrived in Nuuk on 29 July, claiming the record for the earliest Northwest Passage transit from the Canadian icebreaker
CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent by one day. In 2023, Arctia signed a three-year contract with
Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation for icebreaking services of one multipurpose icebreaker during the 2023, 2024 and 2025 shipping seasons in the Canadian Arctic. For the 2023 shipping season,
Nordicas sister ship
Fennica was deployed to Canada.
Controversies In the early 2000s the managing director
Kyösti Vesterinen and several other high-ranking members of the Finnish Maritime Administration were caught in a
bribery scandal when it was found out that DSND Offshore, the charterer of the Finnish multipurpose icebreakers, had offered them several private trips around the world. At the same time the offshore company, which had failed to make payments for the charters in time, was forgiven 153,000 euros of penalty interests. As a result, Vesterinen and two other officials were found guilty for corruption and as a result lost their positions, were given
suspended sentences of four to ten months and had to pay back the unlawfully obtained benefits. The incident ended the co-operation between DSND and the Finnish Maritime Administration and left many people suspicious about the profitability of the multipurpose icebreakers. Later, several prominent people such as the Finnish Minister of Transport
Merja Kyllönen have again questioned the profitability of using the multipurpose icebreakers in offshore business and started a discussion of the future role of the Finnish state-owned icebreaker fleet in commercial work in the Arctic. == Criticism ==