Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards presented its progress toward completing the functional design on the first heavy Polar Icebreaker in Canada in over 60 years at the CANSEC defence and security tradeshow.Functional design of the vessel is now more than 70 per cent complete and 3D modelling of the vessel is well advanced, setting the stage for Seaspan to cut steel on the flagship of the Canadian Coast Guard’s icebreaking fleet before the end of the year.With Canada’s current largest icebreaker—the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent—expected to retire at the end of the decade, the new Polar Icebreaker will be one of the world’s largest, most powerful icebreakers. While designed and built before the implementation of the Polar Code, the Louis’ capability is akin to a Polar Class 4. Canada’s operational requirements drive to building a new Polar Class 2 icebreaker that can independently operate anywhere in the Arctic year-round. This capability includes the ability to operate at –50ºC, which introduces considerable complexity to the design and build of the vessel.Most icebreakers primarily break ice—but the new Polar Icebreaker will also be capable of fulfilling many different demanding missions necessary for Canada, including a wide array of Arctic science missions, search and rescue, security, navigation, transportation, and emergency response.This wide range of capabilities also adds to the design and engineering challenges that are being addressed by the Canadian Coast Guard and the Seaspan team.“Beginning construction on the Polar Icebreaker will be a monumental achievement for Seaspan, Canada and the National Shipbuilding Strategy,” said Dave Hargreaves, Seaspan Shipyards’ senior vice-president of strategy, business development and communications. “By reinvesting in our shipyard’s capabilities and continuously driving improvements in efficiency and quality ship over ship, Seaspan has shown that we have the experience, skills, and personnel to build one of the largest and most complex ships ever to be constructed in Canada.”The Polar Icebreaker will be 158 metres long and 28 metres wide, and able to accommodate up to 100 personnel. It will be able to operate farther north, in more difficult ice conditions and for longer periods than any icebreaker in Canada to date.“The Polar Icebreaker presents unique and complex design challenges, and I’m extremely proud of our team and the progress we’ve made to optimize the design of this important vessel for Canada,” said Jessica Fetterman, chief engineer of the Polar Icebreaker for Seaspan. “Thanks in part to our cross-country supply-chain of 750-plus partners, Seaspan has built Canada’s largest marine engineering and design team, a tremendous capability that did not exist here before the National Shipbuilding Strategy.” (ICE TORONTO)

Fonte notizia: https://www.design-engineering.com/