At 0700 this morning 25th January 2021, the Udaloy class destroyer Severomorsk slipped her moorings in her namesake port and headed to sea.
The Udaloy is a large anti-submarine destroyer measuring in at 512ft long, 57ft wide has a draft of 21.5ft and fully loaded like we are this morning she comes in at 8,500tons.
Therefore, maneuvering her in port is not that easy, especially this morning when your dealing with traffic outbound from Murmansk.
We left port in a line of ships and a submarine, these vessels were outbound for exercise in the Barents Sea, the Delta IV was outbound for a systems test and would be my opponent later on.
Proceeding upriver at a steady clip of 10 knots we pass by several inbound ships and overtake an outbound freighter, we pass by the lighthouse and all is well until I get cut off by the Stereguschiy class corvette, luckily I slammed the Severomorsk full astern just in time.
My next lucky escape came when over taking the freighter clearly that captain didn’t like it and proceeded to come too close again avoiding collision by running full astern.
We passed by the base of Gadzhievo and in port was a Sovremenny class DDG, nothing untoward as the second light house was coming up and there on it is open water.
The key thing to note about this transit is that its very shallow in spots so 10 knots is the limit until you can get out to Kildin Island.
When I reached open sea at 1100 I sped up to 15 knots and the helicopter was already overhead, with the Delta IV acting as my test platform I tasked the KA27 to lay a buoy pattern.
At 1123 I was ambushed by a drone and a SU24 which were taken down at 1125 (simulated), more good news came at 1128 the buoys the Helicopter has laid detected the Delta IV, so I closed the distance and used my hull sensors to obtain a lock.
This exercise is only to test the sensors, so no firing was done and the Delta IV went off on her merry way as did I and at 1220 we both broke away leaving the Exercise area.
At 1517 the Severomorsk entered into Norwegian Economic Exclusion Zone waters, a cruising speed of 21 knots has been established the weather is fair slightly overcast sea state 2.
At 2037 some 18nm from the coast of Norway at Tromso the OOW spotted a cargo ship heading north bound at 3nm from us.
The Severomorsk is heading due south west at 21 knots and is due to make the Straight of Dover by Wednesday 27th January at around 1400 which will put her on time for her next tasking.
