ST. PETERSBURG. Sept 9 (Interfax) - The keel of the Afanasy Ivannikov mine countermeasures ship of Project 12700 has been laid down at Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard in St. Petersburg, an Interfax correspondent reported from the ceremony.
"Today, we are laying down one more combat ship of the Navy's minesweeper series. Today, we are laying down a ship named after Afanasy Ivanovich Ivannikov. He was a legend, a hero of the Soviet Union, a legend of the Northern Fleet. These remarkable ships are unique by nature. No one else in the world makes such ships, using such materials, technologies, and with such a displacement," Russian Navy Commander Nikolai Yevmenov said at the ceremony.
Minesweepers of Project 12700 Alexandrit have a displacement of about 890 tonnes, a length of about 62 meters, a beam of about ten meters, a top speed of about 16 knots, and a crew of 44. The ships have unique, the world's largest, monolithic fiberglass hulls made by vacuum infusion.