Talk:List of icebreakers

question...
It is unclear to me whether to list the Vidar Viking, and her two sister ships, under Norway or Sweden. Built, owned and operated in Norway, registered in Sweden. Go figure. Geo Swan (talk) 00:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

rough work
This file lists some other Baltic icebreakers: http://www.bsis.eisdienst.de/material/Icebreakerservice.pdf

Cleanup
I think we should remove ferries etc. from the list because this is a list of icebreakers, not ice-strengthened ships in general. Double acting ships etc. could be an exception, but in the end they are cargo ships capable of operating independently in ice, not actual icebreakers. Tupsumato (talk) 08:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Removed the ferries. Tupsumato (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Heavy ice
Equipment_of_the_Canadian_Coast_Guard says: Large powerful icebreaker approximately 130 metres long and is capable of sustained operations in the Canadian Arctic with minimal support, for the period of early June to mid-November, and for escort operation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and East Coast of Newfoundland in the winter.

Did we swipe this definition from somewhere or just make it up? And does it apply to just can guard or world wide? Hcobb (talk) 05:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no worldwide classification for different types of icebreakers, so if such definition exists for the Canadian Coast Guard vessels, it's either purely Canadian or done together with the United States. Tupsumato (talk) 10:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The definitions for the ship types comes from Canadian Coast Guard Fleet Order 103.00 Annex A Definition of Vessel Classes and Naming Critera and matches what is used on the CCG website for vessel types. Thread1972 (talk) 17:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

How about adding a link to Ice class? Hcobb (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * When icebreakers are divided to classes (heavy, light, polar, arctic etc.), the division is usually based on the size (length, displacement), power and general operational capability of the vessels (as described in the quoted sentence), not their ice class, which mainly affects to the structural design (strength) of the vessel and is usually dictated by rules set by the ship's classification society instead of the actual icebreaking performance of the vessel (it's possible to construct a vessel which has a very high ice class but is not capable of operating in difficult ice conditions due to other limitations).
 * Thus a link to the ice class article (which needs rewriting) could be misleading. I'd rather try to find out how the Canadian icebreakers are classified into heavy, medium and light icebreakers. Tupsumato (talk) 14:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The USCG keeps saying that the Healy is their largest icebreaker and a medium class icebreaker while the two smaller ships are their heavy class icebreakers. So listing Healy as a Heavy Icebreaker is our own invention. Hcobb (talk) 23:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Do we even need that kind of classification in the article? After all, there are not that many USCG icebreakers, so they would all fit under a single heading. Tupsumato (talk) 03:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

List format
I've been adding some ships and details to this list as well as removing some ships that I don't consider icebreakers. It's still far from complete, of course.

Any ideas of improving the list format, or other comments? Tupsumato (talk) 01:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Maryland icebreakers
I found a good list of vessels in the US state of Maryland that perform ice-breaking operations, but not sure if they would be considered ice breakers for the purpose of this list. http://www.dnr.state.md.us/boating/ice_breaking.asp — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.98.62.34 (talk) 02:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't call those ships icebreakers. There are hundreds if not thousands of vessels of that size, power and icebreaking capability in service around the world. Tupsumato (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Ice class
It would be interesting to also see the ice class in front of every ship name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.126.39.243 (talk) 12:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately there are quite many icebreakers that do not have an "ice class". Adding any technical data would probably mean that the list would have to be converted into tabular form. Tupsumato (talk) 13:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

US Icebreakers
NBC aired a program about icebreakers and gave information that the US had only two ships, with the laying up of the USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB-11) (here), the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) and the medium USCGC Healy (WAGB-20). The List of icebreakers article also contains USCGC Mackinaw (WLBB-30) and there is USCGC Alder (WLB-216). The Alder is a multi-mission vessel, that include ice-breaking so I can see not including it, but USCGC Mackinaw (WLBB-30) is a heavy class icebreaker stationed on the Great Lakes. Otr500 (talk) 04:04, 16 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It is sometimes difficult to decide whether or not to include multi-mission ships and tugboats with some ice-going capability to the list of icebreakers because the world is full of them and the list would bloat, but the USCGC Mackinaw's project name was "Great Lakes Icebreaker". While she's modest-sized, I consider her to be a "real" icebreaker (albeit not "heavy"). Also, as far as I know, she's the only ship in the western hemisphere with icebreaking-rated (VI1300A) Azipod propulsion units. However, because she's not that big and is generally referred to as a buoy tender, she's often not mentioned in such TV programs. Tupsumato (talk) 05:14, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can understand that. With only 2 the US is sure behind. One would think that propulsion would be the future. Look at the Gulf oil spill and having to send vacuum trucks and frac tanks out on barges. One would think we would at least have 3 ships capable of spill recovery or that someone would have one or more around the US. I guess it will take a super tanker rupture and the ensuing catastrophic results to really wake people up. I hope it never happens.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Otr500 (talk • contribs) 05:45, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

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ICE Pact
I have twice reverted a factually incorrect edit about US intending to build icebreakers on Finnish and Canadian shipyards. Please familiarize yourself with the statement before making further edits. Tupsumato (talk) 14:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Given that the ICE Pact is a non-binding agreement between US, Canadian and Finnish governments, I would not include it in this article about built icebreaking ships and ongoing ship projects at all. Perhaps it could be mentioned in the article about the Polar Security Cutter program? Tupsumato (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've read the statement; my second version seems like an accurate summary reflecting the fact it's a formally announced but not binding-like-a-treaty diplomatic agreement to make later purchase agreements yet to be finalized. I'm open to suggestions for tweaking the phrasing if you still think it's factually inaccurate; not sure what your objection is to, exactly. Given the current shortage it seems to be one of the most significant developments on the topic of the US icebreaker fleet in many years, which is why I include it. The statement mentions the Polar Security Cutter program, but it says those are the ones being built in the US. It's unclear to me whether the ones to be built in Finland and Canada will be part of that program or separate; maybe that's yet to be decided or maybe other sources go into more detail?
 * If the objection is that these ships haven't been ordered yet and thus don't belong on a list of ships, then I would say the bullet point talking about unordered ships for the late 2020s should also be removed. Mentioning the ICE Pact on Polar Security Cutter program does make sense to me either way. -- Beland (talk) 18:02, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The statement released by the US, Canadian and Finnish governments does not in any way imply that any of the countries would consider building their own icebreakers at each other's shipyards; in fact "The governments of the United States, Canada, and Finland intend to leverage shipyards in the United States, Canada, and Finland to build polar icebreakers for their own use" and "yards in the United States, Canada, and Finland make significant investments in their domestic capacity to build these vessels for their own needs" imply exactly the opposite. The goal of the ICE Pact thus appears to be to improve each country's capability to build icebreakers through cooperation etc.
 * As for this article, the list includes future projects that have been widely publicized and will be realized with high probability. These are mainly long-term government procurement projects that in some cases already have their own articles.
 * Tupsumato (talk) 19:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That's not what the ICE Pact article says: " Finland will be the majority builder of ships within the ICE Pact, assumed to be building approximately 60-80 ships, as Canada is building eight ships, and approximately 70-90 total ships are to be built in total". And those statements have citations. -- Beland (talk) 19:34, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The claim that Finland would be the "main icebreaker ship builder" cannot be found in the cited source (Iltalehti) which only mentions the US estimate for a total of 70 to 90 ships needed over the next ten years. The statement about Finland "assumed to be building approximately 60-80 ships" is an unsupported claim and presumably calculated by the editor based on the next statement about Canada building eight ships. This is cited from Guardian and it's worth noting that it is not quite correct as it is widely known that Canada is planning to build not only two heavy and six medium icebreakers, but also sixteen light icebreakers as well as eight icebreaking patrol ships within the National Shipbuilding Strategy which predates the ICE Pact. There's also a factual error in the Guardian article as the two heavy polar icebreakers are intended to be split between Seaspan (Vancouver) and Davie (Quebec), but it is not repeated in the Wikipedia article.
 * The Reuters and ECFR articles does not provide additional information beyond the "70 to 90" figure. There's some speculation by the authors but nothing about who would build the majoriry of the icebreakers (and to whom).
 * In general, there seems to be a lot of misinformed speculation around the ICE Pact. IMHO we should not deviate too much from the official statements and their official supporting material at least until the joint MoU comes out later this year.
 * Tupsumato (talk) 21:51, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've removed the unsupported claim and rewrote based on a machine translation from Finnish. I copied what the Guardian had to say about where Canada was building. Did you have recent sources that say that's wrong? -- Beland (talk) 02:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As for List of icebreakers, I've just added "see also" links to ICE Pact for the participating countries, instead of trying to summarize it. For consistency, I dropped the US bullet point about ships that haven't been ordered yet. The article Polar Security Cutter program is already linked for those curious about future plans. -- Beland (talk) 03:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The second PSC has been ordered so at least that should be included in the article. As for including the ICE Pact in the article while it is still a statement with no concrete plans or actions, I still disagree.
 * As for additional sources about the Canadian heavy polar icebreakers being built at two different shipyards, one in Vancouver and the other in Quebec, how about this? Tupsumato (talk) 05:51, 20 July 2024 (UTC)