The history of the development of the shipbuilding at the Sevastopol sea factory, one of the largest ship-building enterprises of the Ukraine, totals more than two centuries.

In 1783, simultaneously with the foundation of the city of Sevastopol, in the convenient nonfreezing Ahtiar bay (Sevastopol bay) of the Black sea at the southwest coast of the Crimean Peninsula a small shipyard under the name "The Sevastopol Admiralty" has been founded under the decree of the empress of Russia Ekaterina II.

For years of existence the ship-building shipyard has got experience of construction of the first class military ships and ships of special assignment.

"Opit" was the first russian armoured vessel . It was a gunboat where at first time all over the world had been carried out the tests of the "mine rams" means "pole-mines", which had been created in Russian navy in 1862 . The vessel had a steel hull. The armoured parapet with chichness of 114 mm, made of armoured plates with dimensions of 1200*1000 mm had been placed at the bow part of the vessel. The plates had been placed on the wood foundation with beam of 305 mm. The pole -mines were situated at the ends of the poles with the length of 6m which could be pushed forward above the stem in the time of approach to the enemy vessel.

The gunboat was renamed to "Mina" in 1883 and in the other years the tests of many samples of mine guns were realized on this boat. The boat took place in the first tests of A.S.Popova under the carrying out of the show of radiocommunication at the vessels and was a member of mine - detachment in 1991. The vessel displacement was 270t, the length was 37,7 m the power of the steam machine was 147kwt, the speed was up to 6 knots.