MT Varzuga

Varzuga anchored off Murmansk, Russia, on 10 April 2015
History
Name:	1977–2003: Uikku 2003–: Varzuga (Варзуга)
Owner:	1977–1993: Neste Oyj 1993–1994: Laivanisännistöyhtiö Nemarc 1994–2003: Laivanisännistöyhtiö Uikku 2003–: Murmansk Shipping Company
Operator:	1977–1993: Neste Oyj 1993–2003: Arctic Shipping Services (Nemarc) 2003–: Murmansk Shipping Company
Port of registry:	1977–2003: Naantali,  Finland 2003–: Murmansk,  Russia
Builder:	Werft Nobiskrug GmbH, Rendsburg, Germany
Yard number:	689
Launched:	20 October 1977
Identification:	IMO number: 7500401 Call sign: UGTL MMSI number: 273449450
Status:	In service
General characteristics
Type:	Product tanker
Tonnage:	11,290 GT 4,937 NT 16,038 DWT
Displacement:	22,654 tons
Length:	164.40 m (539.37 ft) (overall)
Beam:	22.22 m (72.90 ft)
Draught:	9.55 m (31.33 ft)
Depth:	12.00 m (39.37 ft)
Ice class:	1A Super RMRS UL
Installed power:	2 × Wärtsilä Vasa 12V32E (2 × 4,920 kW) 1 × Wärtsilä Vasa 12V22D-HF (1,950 kW)
Propulsion:	Diesel electric propulsion 11.4 MW Azipod unit
Speed:	17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Capacity:	8 cargo tanks, 16,215 m3 (98%)

MT Varzuga (Варзуга) is a Russian product tanker operated by Murmansk Shipping Company. After her modernization in 1993 she became the first merchant ship to be equipped with Azipod, an electric azimuth thruster developed in Finland in the late 1980s. She was also the first non-Soviet ship to transit the Northern Sea Route.

Uikku, built in 1977 by Werft Nobiskrug GmbH in Rendsburg, Germany, was the last ship of a series of four arctic product tankers ordered by a Finnish oil and petroleum products company Neste Oyj in the 1970s. The ships were given names after Finnish seabirds and the silhouettes of their namesake birds were painted on the side of the ships' superstructure. Lunni (Atlantic puffin) and Sotka (Aythya) were delivered in 1976 and Tiira (tern) and Uikku (grebe) in the following year. Until the 1990s the ships were used mainly to transport oil products in the Baltic Sea.

In 1993 Uikku was chartered to a newly founded Arctic Shipping Services to ship petroleum products in the Arctic Ocean. The new shipping company, based in Murmansk, was a joint operation between two Russian companies, Murmansk Shipping Company and Primorsk Shipping Company, and a Finnish company Nemarc Shipping Oy, which in turn was a joint venture shipping company owned by Neste and Kværner Masa-Yards. The ship's propulsion machinery was modernized for navigation in the harsh ice conditions of the Arctic Ocean in 1993 and her ice-strengthening was increased in 1998. In the following years Uikku operated in the Baltic Sea in winter and in the Northern Sea Route during summer months.