The Return of the Big Bear

The motor ship Ursa Major (Big Bear) was relocated from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea to perform new tasks to ensure the transport accessibility of the Kaliningrad region. During the passage from the port of Novorossiysk to the port of St. Petersburg, the flagship of the Oboronlogistics fleet passed Gibraltar, the English Channel and the Danish Straits, withstood two storms, and spent 20 days on the way.

Currently, the vessel is at the dock of the shipyard, where it is undergoing scheduled maintenance as part of the next survey. In the course of the service, under the supervision of inspectors of the Russian Classification Society, the following repairs will be carried out on the vessel:

propulsion system;
main engine;
ancillary machinery;
gross line;
rudder propeller system;
crane equipment;
hull of the vessel.

It is expected that in the summer Ursa Major will enter the St. Petersburg-Kaliningrad container line in addition to the Oboronlogistics vessels operating there. The exact date of the Ursa Major's entry into the line will be determined based on the results of fault detection of all components and mechanisms of the vessel.

The largest ship in the Oboronlogistics fleet, the Ursa Major, was involved in long-term commercial voyages to Asia and the Northern Sea Route. Two years ago, the vessel was already operating on the St. Petersburg-Baltiysk line, then it was replaced by Sparta and Sparta II, and Ursa Major continued to work in the southern direction.

M/v Ursa Major is a universal dry cargo ship of RO-RO/LO-LO class (horizontal and vertical loading), designed for transportation of cargo of various classes: general cargo (including oversized), containers, and rolling equipment (cars, euro trucks, etc.).

The cargo hold of the Ursa Major vessel can accommodate packaged cargo, equipment, containers, and other property weighing up to 1200 tons. The cargo deck accommodates up to 120 units of ro-roaming, wheeled or tracked vehicles. On the open deck there are more than 405 twenty-foot containers in five tiers.
The vessel is equipped with two cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 350 tons, which positions it as a Heavy Lift Cargo Vessel. It reaches a speed of 14 knots. The length of the vessel is 142 m, the width is 23 m, the draft is 7 m.