I am keen to build a WORKING icebreaker after the last lot of ice on the pond. Every year we have ice and everyone and his dog says "ooh, i wish i had an icebreaker"   well. so be it. An instant build, no detail—that can come later, one morning max…ok perhaps a days worth….. I had my eye on the navy`s River class patrol boats for the hull….ie that curious chopped front end. This would give me the big slope needed at the front to ride up on the ice, and enable ALL the sides of the hull to be straight. I am contemplating using a plank for the base and hardboard or 4mm ply for the sides (as its what i have in the shed and is cheap) and weight is not an object. Size,,,ooo er   … 8 inches wide by about 32 long seems good to me. Sides 5 inches deep keel to bulwarks, or even a bit more, enabling a goodly amount of weight to be packed in there. The front would have a thin steel strip on it to stop the relativly soft bow pointy bit getting damaged and also focus the weight, with a tang at the bottom to stop the ship riding up and beaching itself on the ice. Propulsion is the sticky bit. Needs a good shove capability.. i have a 2.5;1 geared 540 wot i am thinking of ,driving a 55mm 3 blade plastic prop (as its all in my spares box)..but will this be enough?  and some sort of rudder protection is required (from last weeks foray by HMS Jersye in  the ice flow) … comments please…..? Ashley

Bob. Yup, heavy is the word. A conventional model will not work as there is not enough weight in the bows for crushing ice. Hence my boat will be very deep, deeper than looks right, in order to get this factor in. It sounds a bit pathetic but i cant see it crushing more that the 1/4 inch of ice we had last Sunday…however thats about as thick as I have seen it on the pond in some years !

A story was related at the pond regarding an incident  last year when there was ice about….there was a small section of pond un-iced, but with floes in it, and there were a lot of ducks in the water, or on the ice… The man in question, Dave, had his tug, a lightweight type, and was going around the ducks "as there was clear water in between the ducks and floes" quote, and as he got near one duck, it appears the duck was actually standing on an underwater sheet of ice, jumped off as the tug came near, and the ice rose to the surface neatly dry docking Daves tug ! to the merriment of all, one assumes. Ashley

Chaps. More thought on this subject.

(from front to rear).

Double chine hull, as per previous, with a thin steel sheath on the pointy bit..

No step at the bottom to prevent riding up, because…..

Although the bottom will be flat, i will have a thin, again, steel, strip running along the centreline., This is because when the Jersey nearly got beached on the ice from running up, the weight was spread over the entire hull, it being fairly round,,,, so.. if there was just a very thin strip on the bottom, when the boat rode up on the ice.. the entire weight would be concentrated on this strip, hopefully resulting in a break…?

Again, from watching the jersy almost beach on an ice shelf……the propeller needs to be well below the keel, so it is always in the water to push or pull, as needs must, when or if the boat beaches.

Needs rudder protection when going astern to prevent damage from hitting rearward floes.

A hard point for a ring to tie a safety line to the boat may be a good idea…..      Ashley

Bah humbug. It looks like it may well be bitter cold, and more importantly… ICY over the weekend and the icebreaker is progressing very slowly, mainly due to a major cut`n`shut job on the front as I realised the front angle was not shallow enough, and the freezing cold in my shed. Predictably the bow is a few degrees adrift of being central now, but i am not that bothered as its only a bash boat. There is the steel front to it, not as sharp as I envisaged but i am not sure that this matters too much. I forsee a spate of overtime painting and fitting remote control gear to get the thing in the water by Sunday even if the deck isnt in place !!!! It weighs a ton as it is without any batteries etc, so thats looking good, I will try to post some pictures. If I get it finished, or at least mobile, by Sunday I may take the Titanic out for a larf as well….Ashley

The bath test..   I plopped the boat in the bath and the water reached barely one inch up from the bottom, I loaded  2x 12v 7Ahr batteries, 4x 6v 4.5Ahr batteries….and the water only reached barely on the halfway mark betwixt top`n`bottom on the hull sides!!!!!.  how heavy???  I have a feeling my geared motor may be inadequate, never mind, the nose of the boat was attempting to push its way up the end of the bath when 12v was applied to the motor.

Paul…..its ridiculous, fancy making a disaster movie about a ship hitting an iceberg!!! how unlikely is that? how could a big ship like that POSSIBLY miss an iceberg, Its daft.       Ashley

Bob your idea has….er, merit, but I think would become uncontrollable without being firmly tied to said tug in order that it stays infront of said tug and dont divert to the side. So saying, its no good to me as i dont have a tug, powerful or otherwise!!!    I suppose you could fit beams projecting rearwards so as to keep tug and dumb in  line, but you would still need a tow rope to pull it off the ice. Keep the ideas coming, its good to think outside the box.

However the subject of pitch on a prop interests me. In the aircraft world, a fine pitch prop has more thrust (i presume for a given enging size/power) so is better for ,say, take-off, but a pitchier prop allows you to,go faster. Does this hold true on boat props???? My icebreaker (now covered in red paint) could do with low speed grunt, as speed will not be of much use.  Ashley

Hmmmm…. I may need to up-size!!!     Ashley