An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-
USCGC Healy (WAGB-20), at right, breaks ice around the Russian-flagged tanker Renda, 250 miles (400 km) south of Nome, Alaska, in January 2012.
A 17th-century Russian koch in a museum
City Ice Boat No. 1 at the Delaware River. The paddle steamer was built in 1837.
Yermak is considered the first true modern sea-going icebreaker.
A nuclear-powered icebreaker is an icebreaker with an onboard nuclear power plant that produces power for the vessel's propulsion system. Although more expensive to operate, nuclear-powered icebreaker
Icebreaker
…to open a wide channel through ice. The steam-powered icebreakers were resurrected in the late 1950s when the Soviet Union commissioned the first nuclear-powered icebreaker, Lenin, in 1959. It had a nuclear–turbo–electric powertrain in which the nuclear reactor was used to produce steam for turbogenerators, which in turn…
Nuclear icebreaker Yamal, 2015
Nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin
Project 22220 icebreaker Ural under construction
The 1975-built Arktika, the first surface ship to reach the North Pole, during a 2006 cruise