Finland’s Powerful Icebreakers Are Carving Out New Paths in Arctic Technology

HELSINKI, Finland — In a quiet bay off Helsinki’s bustling harbor, Finland’s icebreakers loom large and ungainly, basking in the long Nordic summer light as if on a well-deserved holiday after months of fighting bitter Arctic cold.

“Icebreakers are an economic must for Finland. We are the only nation in the world where all our ports freeze over in the winter,” said Harri Soininen, vice president of the Wartsila Arctic Research Center.

Wartsila has launched 58 icebreakers since its tiny diesel-powered Sisu slid off the slips in 1939. About 60% of the world’s icebreaker fleet hails from Wartsila’s yards.

The Finns are proud of their icebreakers.

Cuts Through Ice

The vessel’s distinctive profile--low hull, rounded bow and towering, box-like superstructure--decorates a Finnish coin.

And a Helsinki pop group has named a song “Sibelius and the Icebreakers,” a tribute to Finland’s two most internationally recognized products--the ships and composer Jean Sibelius.

From December to May, Finland’s fleet of nine icebreakers toils round the clock, grinding channels through ice that would otherwise strangle all merchant shipping to the country’s 22 Baltic ports.

“March is by far the toughest month,” said Soininen, adding that temperatures drop to 40 degrees below zero and yard-thick ice forms. “It’s only since 1977 that we’ve managed to keep all our main ports open in winter.”

Sells to Soviets

Finland has sold more than half its icebreakers to the Soviet Union, a longstanding relationship that passed a new milestone when Wartsila won a Soviet order for the Taimyr, the first of two nuclear-powered icebreakers to be built in the West.

The Taimyr was towed from Helsinki in April to a Leningrad shipyard where a 52,000-horsepower Soviet-built reactor is being fitted into its 487-foot long hull, giving it about the same power as carried by the world’s largest supertankers.

Its sister ship, being built by a 2,000-strong army of riveters, welders and engineers, will next year join the Taimyr and five older nuclear-powered Soviet icebreakers.

Once in operation, they will form the backbone of a Soviet drive to make possible year-round mineral and wood product exports from remote Siberian ports.

Ice Several Yards Thick

Wartsila has also designed a large cargo vessel technically capable of plowing its way across the North Pole, where ice thickness averages three to four yards.

Though the ship is likely to remain on the drawing board for some years, Wartsila hopes eventually to sell it to the Soviet Union, which is examining a polar route between its Barents and Bering seas ports--currently a 30-day voyage via the Suez canal.

Icebreaking, to the layman a deceptively simple use of brute force, is a science still in its infancy, as evidenced by the time and money spent on research and ship design.

To refine the craft, Wartsila has built a unique, 70-yard-long, 2.5-yard-wide ice tank for testing models of icebreakers and other vessels.

Design Development

“We like to think we have the best ice tank in the world. It is a very powerful tool for our own design development,” Soininen said.

“It is a common misconception that ice is just ice. Its mechanical properties vary enormously. And we’ve spent a lot of time refining our ice-making techniques to reproduce conditions in the field,” he said.

Markku Ranin, marketing manager for Wartsila’s Arctic transport group, predicted rising demand for research ships able to withstand crushing polar ice as several nations cast their eyes on Antarctica’s hidden mineral wealth.

“The world seems to have fallen victim to Antarctic fever, with several nations planning expeditions to scout out resources down there,” said Ranin.