Designing the Future of the American Icebreaking

Inside Seaspan Shipyards' efforts to help accelerate the U.S. Coast Guard's Arctic Security Cutter program

For decades, conversations about rebuilding the United States Coast Guard icebreaker fleet have largely centered on budgets, politics and the strategic necessity of maintaining a credible presence in the Arctic. Less frequently discussed is perhaps the most critical ingredient of all: engineering maturity.

Building a modern heavy icebreaker is among the most technically demanding challenges in commercial or naval shipbuilding. Hull forms must balance open-water efficiency with brutal icebreaking capability. Propulsion systems must survive impacts measured in hundreds of tons. Every mechanical, electrical and structural system must function in some of the harshest operating environments on earth. Success depends not simply on building ships, but on getting the engineering right before the first steel is cut.

That reality explains why one of the most consequential elements of the U.S. Coast Guard's Arctic Security Cutter (ASC) program is occurring largely behind the scenes.

While Rauma Marine Constructions in Finland and Bollinger Shipyards in the United States will also construct the Arctic Security Cutters, much of the engineering foundation comes from Canada's Seaspan Shipyards and its experienced engineering team led by Senior Vice President of Engineering