The FERHRI has four different class research vessels with gross tonnage from 929 through 2140 tons used for both near shore monitoring and transoceanic shipping.  The research vessels can be used in overseas expeditions to any part of the World Ocean including the Arctic and the Antarctic.

The vessels accommodate from 15 up to 45 researchers and are equipped with echo-sounding devices, prime movers, cranes, single-arm davits, winches, hydro meteorological devices and automatic weather stations.  The vessels are used to observe the atmosphere, sea water (brine), bed silt, plankton, etc. The research vessel “Mirazh” is equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Comanche with a capacity to do researches and perform tasks at the depth up to 2000 meters.

During the past years the researchers from Vietnam, Canada, the Peoples Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, the USA and Japan have participated in researches of the Pacific Ocean and the adjacent seas.

The FERHRI’s research vessels available for overseas expeditions have the following characteristics:

“Pavel Gordienko” research vessel is a sample of a technically equipped research vessel capable to perform various tasks.

The FERHRI fleet’s main tasks are research overseas expeditions and commercial activity to support the fleet.

During the past years the Far Eastern seas have been in the focus of interest of researchers with the Sea of Japan in the first place because of its unique structure.  Joint investigations within the framework of the CREAMS project let the researchers get insight into understanding the processes undergoing in the depth of the sea.  Currently every country that participated in the project (Russia, Japan and the Republic of Korea) is doing researches according to the national schedules; however it has not reduced the interest to joint researches.

From 1999 through 2002 the researchers of the FERHRI together with the researchers of JAERI and Moscow State Engineering Physical Institute performed the investigation of migration behavior of radio nuclides and related oceanographic observations in the Sea of Japan.  In summer the researchers of “Professor Khromov” research vessel collected and processed water and soil samples in coastal laboratories, conducted oceanographic observations and installed long-term autonomous buoy stations.  There were a number of joint publications afterwards, and they stimulated further cooperation.  In 2005 FERHRI started a new three-year investigation of the distribution of artificial radio nuclides and winter convection in the Sea of Japan.  That research is conducted with the support of the International Scientific Technical Center in Moscow, Russia.

In 2002 and 2004 “Pavel Gordienko” and “Professor Khromov” research vessels participated in the investigation of radio nuclear pollution in the areas of radioactive wastes’ burial in the Sea of Japan, the Okhotsk Sea and the north-western part of the Pacific Ocean.  It was performed as a part of an integrated program of regular monitoring of the radioactive wastes’ burial areas. This is a part of the underwater potentially dangerous items’ logging program in the Russian Federation.

In summer of 2002 Russian researchers conducted a number of ecological, oceanographic and hydro chemical investigations in the Sea of Bering and the Sea of Chukotka on the board of “Professor Khromov” research vessel to study important biological, biophysical and biochemical processes under ecological conditions of the eastern Arctic Seas, man impact and the change of climate.  The processes developing biogeochemical cycles of non-natural contaminants and poly nuclear hydrocarbons, polluting sea waters and bed silt by oil hydrocarbons and radio nuclides, were evaluated.

In July and September of 2004 a joint Russian-American expedition was conducted on the board of “Professpr Khromov” research vessel to the Sea of Bering and the Sea of Chukotka according to the program “RUSALKA” (The Russian-American Long-Term Census of Arctic).  The investigations within that project may become the key point in the efforts of researchers of different countries to do a long-scale project of the investigation of the Sea of Bering’s and the Sea of Chukotka’s water cycle and co-influence of arctic and pacific waters on the structure of those seas.  Besides hydro physical and hydro chemical features’ investigations, the program should include the information on sedimentation, marine flora and fauna.

Beginning 1998 through 2001 joint investigations with the researchers of the Japan Science and Technology Corporation were conducted on the board of the “Professor Khormov” research vessel in the Sea of Okhotsk.  For three years the water cycle through Kuril straits, water’s and currents’ structure on Sakhalin shelf and the Sea of Okhotsk were being investigated.

During the past years many investigations were conducted on the boards of “Pavel Gordienko” and “Professor Khromov” research vessels on Sakhalin shelf.  Ecological monitoring in the area of Molikpaq platform’s operation was conducted including the analysis of water samples, bed silt, plankton and benthos for contaminants, hydro chemical parameters measurement, and background surveys for the assessment of ecological condition of marine environment in the area of gas-oil fields.  Geophysical and engineering geological investigations of Sakhalin shelf were conducted on “Valerian Uryvaev”, “Mirazh” and “Academic Shakalskiy” research vessels owned by the FERHRI.

Researchers of the FERHRI participated in setting of deployed floats-profiles.  In 1999 “Professor Khromov” and “Academic Shokalskiy” research vessels were utilized to install 32 deployed floats profiles in the Sea of Japan.  In 2002-2003 25 deployed floats profiles were installed in the Indian Ocean and 24 ones in the Antarctic.