Main engines:

4 × Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...  9L20 (4 × 1,800 kW)

Louhi (pennant number 999) is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 multipurpose oil and chemical spill response vessel owned by the Finnish Environment Institute

Finnish Environment Institute

The Finnish Environment Institute is a research institute and government agency under the Ministry of the Environment, located in Helsinki, Finland. It is both a research institute, and a centre for environmental expertise. SYKE's research focuses on changes in the environment, and seeks ways to...

 (SYKE), but manned and operated by the Finnish Navy

Finnish Navy

The Finnish Navy is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. The Navy employs 2,300 people and about 4,300 conscripts are trained each year. Finnish Navy vessels are given the ship prefix "FNS" simply short for "Finnish Navy Ship"...

. The ship, ordered in 2007, was built by UKI Workboat Ltd in Uusikaupunki

Uusikaupunki

Uusikaupunki , is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located in the Finland Proper region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is inland water. The population density is .The municipality is unilingually Finnish...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, and entered service in May 2011.

Development and construction

The development of the new multipurpose vessel began on 25 May 2003 when the Ministry of Transport and Communications

Ministry of Transport and Communications (Finland)

The Ministry of Transport and Communications is a government ministry of Finland. Its head office is in Helsinki.-External links:* * *...

 appointed a work group to investigate the technical requirements and economic aspects of building a new multipurpose icebreaker

Icebreaker

An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...

 capable of combating oil and chemical spills around the year. The amount of oil transported in the Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...

 had increased from a mere 15 million tons per year in the early 1990s to 69 million tons in 2003 and was expected to reach 130 million tons by 2010 after the new Russian oil terminals became operational, increasing the risk of a large spill in the vulnerable sea area considerably. While Finland already had a fleet of vessels with oil recovery equipment, none of them were capable of collecting spilled oil efficiently in heavy seas or in ice. The new multipurpose icebreaker would be designed to be capable of recovering spilled oil and chemicals in both open water and ice conditions, extinguishing shipboard fires and emergency towing

Emergency tow vessel

An emergency tow vessel, also called emergency towing vessel, is a multi purpose boat used by state authorities to tow disabled vessels on high seas in order to prevent dangers to man and environment...

 of the largest merchant ships operating in the Gulf of Finland. The new vessel would also have sufficient icebreaking capability to assist oil tanker

Oil tanker

An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...

s to the Kilpilahti oil refinery

Oil refinery

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

 in Porvoo

Porvoo

Porvoo is a city and a municipality situated on the southern coast of Finland approximately east of Helsinki. Porvoo is one of the six medieval towns in Finland, first mentioned as a city in texts from 14th century...

 during winter. However, in the interim report, published on 30 September 2003, the work group noted that unless other work outside the winter months could be arranged and the new multipurpose icebreaker would have to spend the rest of the year in pollution control readiness, the operating expenses would be very high.

The work group published its final report on 31 December 2003 and came to a conclusion that while the proposed vessel would definitely be needed and it would be technically possible to construct one, fulfilling the requirements of the different operators with a single ship would be difficult and, as noted before, remaining on standby during the open water season would be very expensive. The work group estimated that the purchase price of the vessel would be 30–70 million euro. One of the proposed alternatives was the conversion of the Finnish multipurpose icebreaker Fennica

MS Fennica

MSV Fennica is a Finnish multipurpose icebreaker and platform supply vessel. Built in 1993 by Finnyards in Rauma, Finland and operated by Arctia Offshore, she was the first Finnish icebreaker designed to be used as an escort icebreaker in the Baltic Sea during the winter months and offshore...

, built in 1993, to a spill response vessel, but this was not pursued further.

The decision of ordering the new multipurpose icebreaker was made in late 2004 and the Finnish Environment Institute and the Finnish Maritime Administration were authorized by the Government to make an agreement on the vessel and launch a request for tender

Request for tender

A request for tender, commonly abbreviated to RFT, is a formal, structured invitation to suppliers for the supply of products or services. In the public sector, such a process may be required and determined in detail by law to ensure that such competition for the use of public money is open, fair...

s in early 2005. The new oil spill response vessel was expected to enter service in 2007. However, only a few offers were received and the new vessel, for which 134 million euro was reserved in the budget, turned out to be more expensive than expected. After evaluating more economic alternatives in October 2005 the committee working on the project came to a conclusion that a new multipurpose oil recovery vessel would still be the best solution to improve spill response readiness. 35 million euro were allocated for the purchasing of the new vessel.

The Finnish Environment Institute sent offers to several shipyards, both domestic and foreign, during the spring 2007. Construction of the new vessel was awarded to the Finnish shipyard UKI Workboat Ltd (Uudenkaupungin Työvene Oy) and the contract, worth 48 million euro, was signed on 26 October 2007. As the new vessel was more expensive than initially planned, an additional 13 million euro was allocated for the purchase in the supplementary budget. The vessel, expected to enter service in 2010–2011, would be operated by the Finnish Navy and based in Upinniemi, where it would replace the aging spill response vessel Hylje. The ship underwent sea trials in early 2011 and was commissioned in May.

Naming

On 8 March 2011, the new multipurpose spill response vessel became the third ship of the Finnish Navy to be named after Louhi

Louhi

Louhi is a queen of the land known as Pohjola in Finnish mythology and the mythology of Lapland.-In mythology:Louhi is described as a powerful witch with the ability to change shape and weave mighty enchantments. She is also the main opponent of Väinämöinen and his group in the battle for the...

, the queen of Pohjola

Pohjola

Pohjola or Pohja is a location in Finnish mythology, sometimes translated in English as Northland or Pohjoland. It is one of the two main polarities in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, along with Kaleva or Väinölä. Its name is derived from the word pohjoinen meaning the compass point north...

 in the Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...

. Its pennant number

Pennant number

In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...

 is 999.

The first Louhi

Finnish minelayer Louhi

Louhi was originally constructed for the Imperial Russian Navy as Voin the Louhi was known in Finnish service as M-1 until 1936. The ship was built as a minelayer but was not particularly good in it with its slow speed, bad seakeeping qualities and poor storage space...

 was a minelayer, built in 1917 as Voin, that was left behind by withdrawing Russian Navy. The newly founded Finnish Navy acquired the ship and renamed it first M-1 (Miinalaiva 1, Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 for Minelayer 1) in 1918 and finally Louhi in 1936. On 12 January 1945, when the ship was laying mines with minelayer Ruotsinsalmi

Finnish minelayer Ruotsinsalmi

Ruotsinsalmi was a minelayer of the Finnish Navy and the namesake of her class. Ruotsinsalmi was commissioned in 1940 and remained in service until 1975...

 at the Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...

, it was hit either by a mine or a torpedo from a German

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

 U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

. The first Louhi sank in two minutes with a loss of 11 lives.

The second Louhi was built in 1939 as icebreaker Sisu and handed over to the Navy in 1970, renamed and given pennant number 90. The ship served as a support ship for Tuima class missile boats

Tuima class missile boat

The Tuima class missile boat was a class of fast attack craft in use by the Finnish Navy.The vessels were constructed in the Soviet Union and purchased by the Finnish Navy between 1974 and 1975...

 and Turunmaa class gunboats

Turunmaa class gunboat

The Turunmaa class fast gunboats was a type of vessel, previously operated by the Finnish Navy in the ASW and trade protection roles. Internationally they were labeled as corvettes.-History:...

, towing them during transit journeys. The second Louhi was decommissioned and scrapped in 1986 mainly because it had become nearly impossible to get spare parts for the old engines.

Mission

Due to the sensitive ecology of the Baltic Sea it has been agreed in the Helsinki Convention (HELCOM) that instead of using dispersants to dissolve the oil slicks combatting the spills is based on mechanical recovery using oil booms to limit the spill and skimmers to collect the oil from the surface as quickly and completely as possible. For this purpose every Finnish pollution control vessel is equipped with permanently installed built-in recovery equipment and such systems have also been installed on several patrol vessels of the Finnish Border Guard

Finnish Border Guard

The Finnish Border guard is the national security agency responsible for enforcing the security of Finland's borders...

. As the primary mission of the new vessel is pollution prevention, the ship has an extensive array of equipment capable of detecting and recovering spilled oil and chemicals in open water, high seas and ice conditions. Some of the equipment, such as an oil-detecting radar and a thermographic camera

Thermographic camera

A thermographic camera or infrared camera is a device that forms an image using infrared radiation, similar to a common camera that forms an image using visible light...

 in the mast, are used for the first time in a Finnish oil recovery vessel. In addition the ship has a weather station and a wet laboratory

Wet laboratory

Wet laboratories are laboratories where chemicals, drugs, or other material or biological matter are handled in liquid solutions or volatile phases, requiring direct ventilation, and specialized piped utilities...

 capable of analyzing water samples automatically.

In addition to environmental duties Louhi can also be used as a support ship for underwater operations by the Finnish Navy. The vessel has facilities for divers, a moon pool

Moon pool

A moon pool is a feature of marine drilling platforms, drillships and diving support vessels, some marine research and underwater exploration or research vessels, and underwater habitats, in which it is also known as a wet porch...

 and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs), and it can be used to lay and recover submarine communications cable

Submarine communications cable

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean....

 which is stored in the ship's recovery tanks. During crisis time the ship, capable of carrying 1,000 tons of fuel and 100 tons of cargo, can be armed with a main gun, machine guns and naval mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

s, and used to supply island forts and other naval vessels.

General characteristics

The Louhi is 71.4 metres (234.3 ft) long, 14.5 metres (47.6 ft) wide and has a draught of 5 metres (16.4 ft). At 3,450 tons it is the largest ship by displacement currently in service in the Finnish Navy and the third largest ever, second only to the coastal defence ships Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen.

The ship is built according to Germanischer Lloyd

Germanischer Lloyd

The Germanischer Lloyd SE is a classification society based in the city of Hamburg, Germany. As a technical supervisory organization Germanischer Lloyd conducts safety surveys on more than 7,000 ships with over 100 Mio GT...

 rules for classification with class notation of GL 100 A5, E4, NAV-OC, Tug, Supply Vessel, Marine Pollution Response Vessel, Oil Recovery Vessel, Chemical Recovery Vessel for the ship and GL MC, E4, AUT, FF1 for the machinery. The vessel is built to the highest Finnish-Swedish ice class

Finnish-Swedish ice class

The Finnish-Swedish ice class is an ice class assigned to a vessel operating in first-year ice in the Baltic Sea and calling Finnish or Swedish ports...

, 1A Super, with special consideration for the dimensioning of the propulsion and hull to meet the requirements for icebreaking capability as the Finnish-Swedish ice class rules do not extend to icebreaking vessels.

Power and propulsion

Electricity is produced by four 9-cylinder Wärtsilä

Wärtsilä

Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...

 9L20 4-stroke medium-speed diesel generating sets with a combined output of 7200 kW. The generators provide power for all shipboard consumers, including two 2,700 kW Z-drive

Z-drive

A Z-drive is a type of marine propulsion unit. Specifically, it is an azimuth thruster. The pod can rotate 360 degrees allowing for rapid changes in thrust direction and thus vessel direction...

 thrusters with 3.1-metre (3.1 metres (10.2 ft)) four-bladed propellers and a 500 kW bow thruster

Bow thruster

A bow thruster is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, the bow of a ship or boat to make it more maneuverable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow the captain to turn the vessel to port or starboard without using the main propulsion mechanism which requires...

. These diesel-electric azimuth thruster

Azimuth thruster

An azimuth thruster is a configuration of ship propellers placed in pods that can be rotated in any horizontal direction, making a rudder unnecessary...

s, manufactured by Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce plc

Rolls-Royce Group plc is a global power systems company headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines , and also has major businesses in the marine propulsion and energy sectors. Through its defence-related activities...

, give the vessel excellent maneuverability at low speeds, stationkeeping and dynamic positioning

Dynamic positioning

Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...

 capability, and a towing capacity

Bollard pull

Bollard pull is a value that allows the comparison of the pulling force of watercraft, particularly tugboats. A mooring bollard may be used as a point of attachment for measuring the force, or pull of the craft.-Background:...

 of 600 kN (61 tf).

The Louhi has icebreaking capabilities second only to real icebreakers. The ship is designed to maintain a continuous speed of 7.5 knots (14.7 km/h) in 50 centimetres (20 in) ice and 3 knots (5.9 km/h) in 1 metres (3 ft) ice, both with a 20 centimetres (8 in) snow cover. Additionally the vessel is designed to be capable of penetrating an ice ridge with a maximum thickness of 5 metres (16 ft) with a single ram starting from 7.5 knots (14.7 km/h), maintain a speed of 9.5 knots (18.6 km/h) in 1 m thick brash ice channel and be capable of operating in ice channels up to 2.3 metres (8 ft) thick. In open water the ship has a service speed of 15 kn (29.4 km/h).

The operational range of the vessel is 6000 nautical miles (11,112 km) and the provisions give the ship an endurance of 20 days.

Recovery equipment

The mechanical oil recovery equipment onboard the Louhi is based on the same stiff brush technology that has been proved to be effective by the previous Finnish spill response vessels. The vessel is equipped with three different types of recovery systems developed and manufactured by Lamor, each suitable for specific weather conditions. The equipment is fully mechanized, remotely controlled and capable of deploying to operational mode in 10 minutes per side. The fourth system, designed for difficult ice conditions, is a new innovation developed by the Finnish Environment Institute.

In open water, the ship uses a permanently installed advancing system which consists of outriggers and sweeping booms on both sides of the ship that recover oil and debris from a wide area as the vessel moves forwards with a constant speed of 1.5 knots (2.9 km/h). The polluted material is collected in side boxes inside the ship where they are separated from the water for processing by brush conveyors. The sweeping width of the advancing system is 42 metres (138 ft), second only to the Finnish icebreaker Kontio that has been equipped for oil recovery by the European Maritime Safety Agency

European Maritime Safety Agency

The European Maritime Safety Agency is a European Union agency charged with reducing the risk of maritime accidents, marine pollution from ships and the loss of human lives at sea by helping to enforce the pertinent EU legislation...

 and has a sweeping width of approximately 50 metres (164 ft).

However, as the advancing system can only be used effectively in calm seas with significant wave height

Significant wave height

In physical oceanography, the significant wave height is defined traditionally as the mean wave height of the highest third of the waves , but now usually defined as four times the standard deviation of the surface elevation...

 below one metre, the Louhi is also equipped with a special "wave damping tank", a new innovation used for the first time in a Finnish recovery vessel, that can be used in combination with the aforementioned stiff brush conveyors and a shorter sweeping boom to collect oil in 2 metres (7 ft) swell. The system consists of a dampening channel that guides the oil to the recovery system on the other side of the ship. Spilled oil surrounded by oil booms

Boom (containment)

A containment boom is a "temporary floating barrier used to contain an oil spill. Booms are used to reduce the possibility of polluting shorelines and other resources, and to help make recovery easier. Booms help to concentrate oil in thicker surface layers so that skimmers, vacuums, or other...

 can also be collected by two free-floating skimmers connected to the vessel by a flexible pipe.

As the recovery systems designed for open water can not be used efficiently or at all during wintertime, Louhi is also equipped with two recovery systems capable of collecting spilled oil from the sea in difficult ice conditions and clean ice blocks covered in oil. The main recovery system consists of four large brushes controlled by individual crane arms installed on the stern deck. The system, developed specifically for this vessel, has a sweeping width of 16 metres (52 ft) and recovers oil from the sea as the vessel moves astern in ice. In addition the vessel has two Lamor LRB-series oil recovery buckets that have large rotating brushes that resemble those of street sweeper

Street sweeper

A street sweeper or street cleaner can refer to a person's occupation or a machine that cleans streets, usually in an urban area.-History of street sweeping in the United States:...

s and are used in a similar fashion. Despite their limited recovery capacity, the brush buckets operated by the ship's cranes have been proven to be effective in ice conditions in the past, such as that of the Runner 4 in 2006.

The recovery tanks, equipped with heating and an inert gas system that uses nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

 to displace explosive gases, have a total capacity of 1,200 cubic metres for spilled oil and 200 cubic metres for chemicals. In addition to recovery equipment the vessel carries 800 metres (2,625 ft) of heavy duty oil boom.

When the light components in crude oil evaporate over time, they form an explosive compound with air. For this reason special attention has been paid to prevent sparks and high surface temperatures in the ship and its equipment. In case of chemical spills, the ship can be overpressurized to prevent potentially toxic chemical substances from entering the ship and harming its crew. In such situation, the outer decks can be accessed via air locks.