The new icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard being built at Marinette Marine Corp. will feature some of the world's most advanced icebreaking features, complements of Finland. Marinette Marine, a division of Manitowac Marine Group, has contracted with a pair of Kvaerner Masa-Yards Group Companies —
Kvaerner Masa Marine (KMM) and Masa-Yards Arctic Technology Center (MARC) — to provide ice breaking consulting services and model testing for the new USCG Great Lakes Icebreaker Mackinaw. Named in honor of the heavy icebreaker that it is replacing, Mackinaw will be a multi-mission vessel, measuring 240 x 60 ft. (73 x 18.3 m), and it will displace 3,500 tons.
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.
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