How are they different from regular ships?
What makes them be able to plow through ice where others aren’t?
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In addition to what others have mentioned, the ice breaking ships have a bubble maker that blows bubbles under the ice first, which makes a pocket of air under the ice, which makes the ice a ‘shelf’ that is easier to break than if it were sitting buoyant on the water.
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They slide on top of the ice like a walrus until it breaks from the weight. Normal ships can’t do that. They would attempt to slice through the ice like an axe and fail.
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I worked on a different type of icebreaker for a few years. The [Williston Transporter](https://www.google.com/search?q=williston+transporter&client=ms-android-zte&prmd=vin&sxsrf=APq-WBt451RBZNB1IlM049u7YwSywdXYpw:1648397535490&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwianrSs1-b2AhUUMH0KHVgEAA8Q_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=360&bih=464&dpr=3#imgrc=2JGRmDAbngTmFM) was designed to haul logs year round on Williston Lake.
It had a flat bottom. The ice broke from the weight of the boat and it slid over the broken chunks. It can break through ice six feet thick though the boat would have to back up and hit the ice a few times to break through the thicker ice. The path would freeze over once the boat had gone by, and big chunks of ice would freeze on top of other chunks doubling the thickness of the ice after a few trips.
The boat was powered by 4 Mitsubishi engines and Z Drives with 360 degree rotation set up in a diamond pattern. The front engine was a monstrous 1,200 horsepower 16 cylinder beast. The back 3 were 12 cylinders rated at 800 horsepower apiece. When the ice got thick the captains would stop the boat every couple hundred yards, turn all of the propellers to one side and push the ice out of our path. This was a time consuming process but after the boat would sail faster for the next week or two and ultimately we delivered more wood while using less fuel.
Snow was the Transporter’s biggest nemesis. 8 inches of snow or more would become sticky when it got wet and slowed the boat down drastically. Not there was a big dump of snow sometimes it was faster to wash the ice off with the props before climbing on it to break a path through it.
The boat held 60,000 liters of fuel. During the summer months it could travel 90 miles up the lake empty in 8 hours and return loaded in 12. It could make 5-6 round trips on one tank of fuel. During the winter it would burn between 30,000 and 50,000 liters of fuel per trip depending on the ice conditions. Ninety mile runs could take anywhere between 10 hours a a record of 63 hours.
When the boat was first built the tops of the props were three feet below the bottom. About 3 years after it was built one of the drive legs ($800,000 each) fell off and has never been found. It was thought that thick ice caught between the prop and the bottom of the boat and sheered the bolts holding it in place. All legs were lowered to provide 6 feet of clearance after to prevent further loss.
Fully loaded the boat could carry 100 off highway truck loads of wood per trip. About 5,600 metric tons, or 7,500 cubic meters of wood. On a good trip we could load the boat in 12 hours. If we were dealing with mud, snow or decks far from the beach it might take 28-30 hours to load it. I think our average was 16-17 hours to load it. Offload times ranged from 10 hours to 20 hours depending on weather.
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The front of the ship is very strong, and unlike a normal ship, it”s shaped kinda like a wedge. This means that when it hits a chunk of ice, instead of crashing straight into it like a normal ship, it climbs on top of it. But the ship is very heavy, so when it climbs on top, the ice can’t support it, so the ice breaks, and the ship continues going forward. Keep going long enough, and it’ll have broken a way through for normal ships to pass.
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