Kvaerner Masa Marine (KMM) and Masa-Yards Arctic Technology Center (MARC), both part of the Kvaerner Masa-Yards Group, were recently
awarded a contract to provide ice breaking consulting services and model testing for the USCG Great Lakes Icebreaker currently being designed by Marinette Marine Corporation (MMC) a division of Manitowoc Marine Group.
The new icebreaker will be named Mackinaw in honor of the heavy icebreaker that it is replacing. The new Mackinaw will be a
multi-mission vessel, approximately 73 m long, 18.3 m beam, and displacing 3,500 tonnes. The ship will break ice to keep the Great
Lakes shipping lanes open in the winter and service aids to navigation in summer. As well, the vessel will perform search and rescue, pollution
control, security and law enforcement. The vessel employs azimuthing podded electric drives, which were pioneered by Kvaerner Masa-Yards in
conjunction with ABB Industry Oy.
The icebreaking consulting services to be provided to MMC will include a hull form feasibility study, and ice performance, powering, stability, seakeeping and maneuvering performance evaluations. One of the hull forms to be studied will be the Double Acting Concept patented by
Kvaerner Masa-Yards. MARC will also be carrying out an extensive ice model test program at their model ice tank in Helsinki and KMM will supervise the open water model tests to be carried out at SSPA in Sweden.