Not a MyNAP member yet? Register for a free account to start saving and receiving special member only perks. Icebreaking ships are a relatively new evolution in the history of ship design and construction. Conventional ships in or near ice-covered waters from the earliest years of recorded history had to do their best to avoid the ice.
If they failed, they risked being trapped in ice with the potential loss of the ship and crew due to the extreme pressures and strength of the ice. As early as , Lt. William E. He was forced to winter on Melville Island before turning back in due to his inability to penetrate the ice.
Although the desire to explore the Antarctic and Arctic may have initiated the development of ships designed to operate in and around ice-covered waters, this desire was closely coupled with the commercial aspirations of whalers and seal hunters. Initially, these purpose-built ships were intended only to survive in the harsh environments, not to routinely break ice.
As such, they were considered ice-strengthened ships. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, ships were being built for the purpose of breaking ice. British shipyards constructed several powerful icebreaking ships for the Imperial Russian government.
Around the same time Canada ordered several smaller icebreakers to perform escort service in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf. The U. Navy and the Revenue Cutter Service each had interests in ice-filled waters, but neither had specialized ships for operation in the ice until the late s. The Revenue Cutter Service acquired its first ice-strengthened ship in when the U. BEAR was purchased to perform a rescue mission of a U.
