Icebreaking Ship

This episode reveals the engineering breakthroughs behind the Arctic's biggest icebreaking ship — the oil tanker Timofey Guzhenko.

Weighing in at over 93 thousand tonnes, the Timofey Guzhenko is by far the biggest icebreaking ship to operate in the Arctic Ocean. It can smash through solid ice a meter and half thick and pulverize blocks of ice the size of a car with its huge propellers. But the Timofey Guzhenko wasn't designed and built in a day.

It stands on the shoulders of historic engineering achievements that have allowed it to grow so big. This film charts the stories of four historic inventions, embodied by landmark machines — giants of the ice.

One by one — traveling up the scale — this film reveals the incredible stories behind these machines and the inventions that drove them ever bigger. Four ingenious leaps forward that enabled Icebreakers to evolve …from BIG to BIGGER into the Arctic Ocean's BIGGEST.

The film investigates how the engineers behind the world's first true icebreaking ship worked out how to create a bow that allowed a ship's own weight to smash ice in the port of Hamburg. The film shows how the propulsion system of the Soviet icebreaker Lenin used the ultimate power source — uranium — and how a revolutionary protection system was installed into the hull of German icebreaking ship the Polarstern to protect it from the ice.

The film reveals how each of these engineering innovations has assisted in the design of the Timofey Guzhenko. It explores how the latest radar and navigation systems aboard the ship allow it to avoid treacherous ice. The film follows the crew of the icebreaking oil tanker Timofey Guzhenko on an epic 500 kilometer voyage deep into the ice covered Arctic Ocean. Traveling during the coldest part of the year the ship is headed for a remote oil terminal where it's due to pick up 70,000 tons of crude oil. Encountering the worst ice conditions the crew have ever faced it's the toughest journey of the ship's life. The film finds out from the captain and crew what it's like to pilot this 93 thousand tonne monster, and visits the foremost ice testing laboratory in the world to see how the ship was designed to tackle the toughest the Arctic could throw at it. We travel to the construction plant where colossal 30 ton propeller units are made and see first hand how the ship deals with one of the most challenging obstacles of the Arctic, an 8 meter deep ice ridge.

A stunning CGI animation brings the four inventions and landmark machines to life. Combined with practical demonstrations and breathtaking filming this film provides the ultimate explanation of how ingenious technology enabled the icebreaker to evolve into the ultimate weapon against the Arctic ice — the Timofey Guzhenko.

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