Canada begins work on heavy polar icebreaker to protect its high-Arctic sovereignty
How the new icebreaker could look. (Image: Seaspan)
The vessel, made under the auspices of the country’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, will be the first heavy icebreaker built in Canada for over six decades.
Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan has begun construction of the country’s new heavy polar icebreaker vessel.
The first steel for the new Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) vessel was cut on 3 April in North Vancouver. Seaspan said the vessel, when commissioned, would be “one of the most advanced conventional polar icebreakers ever to be built”.
The Polar Class 2 vessel will be 158m long and 28m wide, and has been designed to operate self-sufficiently in the high-Arctic the whole year round.
When it becomes part of the CCG’s fleet, it will help the service work more than 162,000km of Arctic coastline.
Among
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