Written by
Nick Blenkey
Picture: Seaspan Shipyards
Rauma, Finland, primarily based Steerprop is to produce two arctic tunnel thrusters for the polar icebreaker that Seaspan Shipyards is to construct for the Canadian Coast Guard. Being constructed below Canada’s Nationwide Shipbuilding Technique, the 27,876 tonnes displacement multi-mission polar icebreaker may have a Polar Class 2 (PC2) ice ranking and can be capable of function in harder ice situations (together with in multi-year ice) and for longer durations than some other Canadian icebreaker.
Steerprop will equip the polar icebreaker with two arctic tunnel thrusters specifically designed to satisfy essentially the most demanding ice situations, even with out the safety of tunnel grids. This shall be Steerprop’s first supply of this distinctive ice-strengthened tunnel thruster, which is able to take the efficiency and reliability of tunnel thrusters to the subsequent degree. The supply scope additionally features a bridge management system and an offline oil filtering system.
Steerprop has designed an optimum resolution for the scope and operational profile of the icebreaker primarily based on its decades-long expertise of delivering ice-classed options. Along with optimizing operational efficiency, the absolutely built-in propulsion resolution is designed to extend reliability and security, whereas decreasing lifecycle prices and preserving upkeep necessities at a minimal.
”The polar icebreaker shall be an extremely advanced ship, designed to function within the Arctic’s ice-covered waters,” says Russell Davison, vice chairman of Coast Guard applications at Seaspan. “It’ll play a vital function in enabling the Canadian Coast Guard to transit and defend the Arctic shoreline. A dependable and environment friendly propulsion system is subsequently important, and the Steerprop resolution has been chosen to ship this.”
Steerprop delivered its first propulsion items for an icebreaker in 2008 and has been a acknowledged participant on this demanding phase ever since, constantly accumulating operational expertise from icebreakers in each the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. All through the years, Steerprop has put nice emphasis on growing the efficiency and reliability of its options particularly for the world’s most difficult areas, together with the Polar Code areas.
“The arctic situations require excessive reliability – reliability is all the time crucial factor. Our R&D has all the time taken this type of final dependability to be the inspiration of all the things we do. The propulsion system should be capable of carry out, day in and time out,” says Juho Rekola, Director, Gross sales and Mission Administration at Steerprop. “For demanding arctic situations, the thrusters must be constructed for the aim taking into consideration extreme ice situations and the operational space. This, together with our huge expertise of delivering propulsion methods to ice-classed vessels, has resulted in a really optimized resolution for this polar icebreaker.”
