Nadezhda sailing ship sets for expedition to check radiation in Sea

VLADIVOSTOK, May 3 (Itar-Tass) -- The Nadezhda sailing vessel of the
Nevelsky State Naval University on Tuesday sailed off from the Russian Far
Eastern port of Vladivostok for an expedition to the Sea of Japan (Eastern
Sea) to check the radiation situation after the accident at Japan's
Fukushima nuclear plant.
The mission is sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society under the
same program as is performed by Pavel Gordiyenko research vessel currently
on a mission in the Pacific.
Specialists from the Nadezhda vessel will check radiation background
levels in air, water and in sea fauna at various areas of the Sea of
Japan. The results, along with data from the Pavel Gordiyenko ship, will
help get a clearer picture of the radiation situation after the Fukushima
accident.
Nadezhda will return home in late May and then sail out for a training
voyage to the settlement of Plastun in the Primorsky territory. Later on,
the vessel will be repaired and upgraded as part of the program of
preparations for the Pacific voyage timed to coincide with the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012.
A comprehensive expedition of the Russian Geographical Society on
board the research vessel Pavel Gordiyenko began on April 22. The vessel
sailed off from Vladivostok to study the radiation situation near the
shores of Russia's Far East. The ship will sail through the strait between
the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, along the Kuril Islands and
to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Measurements of the radiation background will
be made along the way and meteorological data will be gathered.
Nadezhda, a three-mast sailing ship, was built at the Gdansk shipyards
in 1991 to the design of sailing vessels of the early 20th century. It is
a training vessels for students of nautical universities in the Russian
Far East.
Nadezhda's nautical biography contains dozens of expeditions and
cruises to various regions of the World Ocean. In 2003, the ship sailed
off Vladivostok to carry out global cruise devoted to 200th anniversary of
the first Russian around-the-world cruise performed by Ivan Kruzenshtern
and Yury Lisiansky on sloops Nadezhda and Neva. Through 14 months of the
cruise the ship covered about 45,000 nautical miles and visited 30 ports
of 20 countries.
Nadezhda is a multiple winner and awardee of international regattas.