Seaspan awarded contract to build heavy icebreaker: Commentary
The Vancouver shipbuilder will build one of Canada’s two planned PC2 vessels.
This is a reproduction of an article that first appeared on Sixty Degrees North. If you would like to read more posts by Peter Rybski, you can sign up for his blog here.
According to a March 7, 2025 press release from Seaspan:
Today, Seaspan Shipyards (Seaspan) has been awarded the construction contract to build one of the Canadian Coast Guard’s (CCG) new heavy polar icebreakers.
The polar icebreaker will be built entirely in Canada at Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards, located in North Vancouver, British Columbia. With the contract now in place, Seaspan is ready to cut steel on this ship and begin full-rate construction on Canada’s newest vessel under the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS). Construction of this ship will support the work of a team of more than 1,000 local shipbuilders and a broad Canadian supply chain of over 800 Canadian companies contributing massive strategic value, innovation and economic benefits to Canada.
Building this complex and densely-outfitted multi-mission ship will mark the first time a polar icebreaker has been built in Canada in more than 60 years and will have more advanced capabilities than the CCG’s current heavy icebreakers. Once delivered, this made-in-Canada heavy polar icebreaker will be one of the most advanced and capable icebreakers in the entire world. It will be one of only a handful of Polar Class 2 ships in operation and will allow for the CCG to operate self-sufficiently year-round in the high- Arctic, down to temperatures at -50°C.
QUICK FACTS
- The polar icebreaker will be 158 metres long and 28 metres wide, with a design displacement of 26,036t.
- Highlights of key design features, include:
- IACS Polar Class 2 (PC2) Heavy Icebreaker
- More than 40MW of installed power
- Ice-classed azimuthing propulsion system
- Complex, multi-role mission capability
- Scientific Laboratories
- Moon Pool (to allow for safe deployment of equipment from within the ship)
- Helicopter flight deck and Hangar
- Vehicle Garage and future Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) capability
Seaspan is one of three Canadian shipyards designed under Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy to build large ships (>1000 tons) for the Canadian government. The other two shipyards are Irving and Davie. Irving is focused on ships for the Canadian Navy. Davie we will cover in more depth quite soon. I will write more about Canada’s icebreakers and the NSS sometime in the future.
A Brief History of Canadian Heavy Icebreaking
Although the Canadian Coast Guard calls two of their current icebreakers ‘heavy,’ they are more similar in capability to the U.S. Coast Guard’s medium icebreaker, the Healy. Canada generally uses its icebreakers for different purposes, something that is also on the big list of topics to cover.
1980s-1990s
Over the past few decades, Canada has started- and then stopped- programs to build more capable icebreakers. The first of these is the Polar 8 project of the 1980s. This project, begun in direct response to the 1985 transit of the U.S. Coast Guard’s heavy icebreaker Polar Sea through the Northwest Passage1, was designed to build a ship capable of operating year-round in the Arctic. The program was cancelled in 1990.
As a result of the cancellation, the Canadian Coast Guard funded a major service life extension program for its most capable icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent. To cover the gap during that maintenance program, the CCGS first leased and later purchased the commercial icebreaker Terry Fox, now CCGS Terry Fox. These two vessels are currently Canada’s most capable icebreakers (both are PC 4 equivalent) and are designated ‘heavy Icebreakers’ by the CCGS2.
2000-2010s
In 2008, then Prime Minister Harper announced a plan to build a new polar icebreaker to replace the Louis S. St-Laurent, which was originally scheduled for decommissioning in 2017. This program is sometimes referred to as the Diefenbaker project based on the original name of the proposed icebreaker.
In 2011 a contract was awarded to Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards, one of two shipyards then participating in the National Shipbuilding Strategy, to design and build this heavy icebreaker. The design contract was subsequently awarded (in 2012) to STX Canada Marine. Aker Arctic, a Finnish icebreaker design company, was also part of the development team.
But delays in other programs and a change in Canada’s shipbuilding priorities significantly delayed the polar icebreaker program. According to a June 2024 report on the program:
The project was originally intended to construct a single new polar icebreaker with an estimated cost of 720 million that would achieve operational status in 2017. The delivery date was subsequently delayed to allow Vancouver Shipyards (VSY) to finish its work on the Royal Canadian Navy’s Joint Support Ship (JSS) Program. Delays surrounding the Joint Support Ship program prompted additional delays to the Polar Icebreaker Project, requiring that the current existing heavy icebreaker, the Canada Coast Guard Service (CCGS) Louis S. St-Laurent, undergo a life extension program.
In 2019, the Canadian Government “moved the construction out of Vancouver.”
2020s
In 2021, the National Shipbuilding Strategy was updated to include two polar icebreakers- one to be built at Seaspan’s shipyards in Vancouver, the other to be built by Davie in Quebec (pending Davie’s successful certification as the NSS’s third shipyard).
Seaspan teamed up with Aker Arctic and Elomatic, another Finnish design company, to check and update the design with current technology. This was a major redesign effort that resulted in a significant change to the vessel’s propulsion configuration, as it will now feature Aker Arctic’s patented hybrid propulsion configuration using two azimuth propulsion units and a fixed centerline shaft.
Seaspan completed a ‘prototype block’ in February 2024. This prototype block project was designed to ensure that Seaspan’s production teams had the right processes, procedures, equipment, and skills in place to build a PC2 polar icebreaker.
And then in May 2024, Seaspan unveiled a digital model of the design at CANSEC, a Canadian defense trade show:
Coming soon: An important announcement concerning Davie’s heavy icebreaker program. Stay tuned!
Thoughts and Comments:
Construction is scheduled to start in April 2025, but there was nothing in the press release about an expected delivery date. I’ve seen 2030 and 2032 written in different places, but neither of those numbers are official. I will be tracking the construction progress closely.
At $3.15 billion Canadian (approximately $2.2 billion USD), the cost and size of this vessel is on par with the U.S. Coast Guard’s planned Polar Secuity Cutter. It will be interesting to see how these programs compare with each other, as both are expensive and long delayed. With regards to power, this icebreaker is similar to both the Polar Security Cutter and Le Commandant Charcot (although Charcot lacks the fixed shaft).
The price seems quite high compared to Charcot, but there has long been a premium to be paid to build ships in North America.
There is one interesting sentence in the press release:
Seaspan is the only Canadian shipyard with the expertise, facilities, and domestic supply-chain to build polar icebreakers in Canada.
This (and other phrases like it) are a dig at Davie, which has just announced that it will build its own design polar icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard. But in order to deliver it by 2030, Davie intends to do some of the work at its Helsinki shipyard. You can bet I’ll be following that program closely, as it is the type of program I’ve been suggesting for the United States for some time. I’m already working on a post about Davie, and you can bet I’ll cover the timeline differences.
With so much going on- and a heavy icebreaker about to built a short drive from where I live- now is the time to subscribe so that you never miss an update as these two construction projects begin.
All the best,
PG
1 Canada views the Northwest Passage as internal waters, whereas the United States considers it to be an international strait. The U.S. did not seek Canada’s permission before Polar Star’s 1985 transit. The U.S. has not changed its official position but has since agreed to notify Canada before future transits. For more on the 1985 event, see here.
2 This is part of the reason that I find the heavy, medium, and light distinctions unhelpful and often misleading.
