Icebreakers don't break ice the way you think

Not every ship can break through giant blocks of ice, taller than a house, to reach these regions. And that's what icebreaker ships were designed for. They enable the rescue of other ships, opening channels, conducting patrols, performing research, and even tourism.
Meet the powerful nuclear and diesel icebreakers.
Note: This video is an adaptation of a video from my Brazilian Portuguese channel called "Integrando Conhecimento".

[@bojangles2492]

That's exactly how I thought they break through ice..

[@orengordon7921]

Same 😂😂😂

[@landonwalker9091]

That’s what I was about to say 😂😂 it’s literally how I think all people think ice breakers do it

[@winstonwolff]

The canal blockage in 2021 was no accident. We can launch things & people into space but we can't get a ship unstuck for a week in the only bottleneck in that part of the world?🤔🤥

[@OccidentalAryan]

@@winstonwolff True.

[@SubvertTheState]

​@@winstonwolff This is the first time I've thought of that. Holy cow. Excuse for over inflated prices

[@MrOtistetrax]

Shout out to the cameraman who stood down on the ice while the giant ship smashed it around him.

[@bmint]

Cameraman never dies 😂

[@hakjobtm7472]

Smdh he could've at least helped the icebreaker 😡

[@jrseitz21]

🤔

[@AHlMlAD]

Drone

[@carloseduardomangini6003]

The camera was on a stick, you can see the shadow.

[@Jangocat]

I already knew how they worked but this was a well produced video, well done!

[@mikev2116]

I knew icebreakers had different hulls, but man you hit it out of the park with this highly explanative production!!!

[@tideypods4808]

9:35 I love how these are just big buildings on boats or in this case a flippin raised landing pad on the deck

[@zacharymossman3593]

so they don't strap a bunch of tiny gnomes with little saws to the front of the ship??? I've had this all wrong for years

[@DaneKaiser]

😂😂😂

[@johnsrabe]

Hi, for one, I’m extremely disappointed icebreakers don’t break ice by telling a joke.

[@kevinmcdowell9074]

This comment doesnt have enough upvotes

[@johnsrabe]

@ thank you, but it would just encourage me to make more bad jokes.

[@Jason-wc3fh]

@@kevinmcdowell9074 I think the joke went over a lot of peoples heads. I definitely agree it should be right at the top.

[@jefryt67]

Yes, just sits in awkwardness.

[@prof.heinous191]

I guess you already know the one about how many icebreakers it takes to change a lightbulb?

[@danieloblinger1199]

You have no idea how I think ice breakers break the ice.

[@moldybread2445]

Sooooo.... Come here often?

[@LeeePowers]

The break ice exactly like I thought. I just thought there was some new 2023-24 method.

[@spun8389]

Yea I like how much detail he went into though it's pretty informative ​@@LeeePowers

[@JonnySublime]

😂😂😂😂

[@rerun3283]

This video is wrong. Ice breakers have big springs under them and they kind of bounce up and hop onto the ice and then shake until the ice breaks.

[@irockluculent961]

Densely packed with facts and images; I learned a lot in a short time.

[@BeanzAviation3967]

Very cool video!

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

ahaha icy wat u did there

[@BenjaminCintron-e8j]

Thank's to you guys braving that cold to give us this video. Great video, very informative 👍👏

[@RyuTakeru]

Amazing Production My Man, Thx For Making This Highly Detailed Explanation Of Ice Breakers 🚢🚢🚢

[@FlatlanderGear]

Fantastic explanation. Technical and straightforward.

[@seven11-961]

Great video! Very well made! Just seeing the variety of all those ships was awesome. What I do have to say, it was kinda exhausting that you kept giving each and every measurement in metric and imperial, really hurt the flow of some parts of the video. Just use metric and if you insist on stupid units, maybe just put them on screen. Anyway, great video! ❤️

[@Volkswagenitalia.]

Thanks for this! I only knew about crushing the ice with the weight of the ship. I had no clue about the other methods, nor the combinations thereof. I appreciate you including some up and coming ships that are under construction.

[@MrKotBonifacy]

14:05 - all that we could here from "this guy was: "[the weight? - inaudible] _is over 110 thousand_ [metric] _tons and the width is over 50 meters"_ ("[...] более сто десять тысячи тон, и ширина более пяти десять метров"). Also, the on-screen caption reads "thickness of the bottom [of the hull] is greater than 4 metres - obviously, "structural thickness", not a "homogenous rolled steel", obviously.

[@hosseinhosseini8090]

Lots of great information. Thanks

[@halcyonzenith4411]

I always thought these ships just told a few jokes and got everyone involved in a fun game, this is nothing like that.

[@frankbullitt4556]

Very interesting and well-made video.

[@joshuarosen6242]

It turns out that that was exactly how I thought ice breakers work.

[@JamesMaksem]

Great video 👍😆

[@knotkool1]

literally everyone watching this thought this was how icebreakers work. still watched the whole thing. so. except for the stupid title, good video.

[@HugoDiasR]

Problably ur mom don't know how icebreakers work, so the tittle is legit

[@zloidooraque0]

some was thinking it was gnomes woth little saws straped to the bow of ship and some were thinking they break ice with jokes. read coments by yourself.. so another one comment saying uou have no idea what i think how they break the ice was right

[@LostMediaForge]

So ice breakers work exactly the way i tought they do.

[@JM-jd7yp]

A very informative video. Thank you.

[@matts2581]

That was fresh! :D TY for sharing. :)

[@thedarkcranberry]

Super informative

[@Justalaborer]

Awesome video! I may be biased as a former deckhand but regardless 10/10 from me. Liked and subscribed!

[@hutchinson54]

This was a pretty cool video. 😎

[@bmint]

This was quite interesting and very entertaining to me.. I don’t know why.. But thank you for this information ❤

[@rocketman63]

I always thought it was done with giant secret chainsaws beneath the waterline.

[@kalumbabwale3729]

Goes ahead and describes my exact understanding of how icebreakers work.

[@vicbanks9079]

cool vdo packed w info thx

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

I've never seen jet propulsion on a f*cking boat holy shit that was cool

[@artemelestudiante187]

Great video dude!

[@bakedapplepie154]

Great vid really it was, but thats exactly how i would have thought ice breakers work.... besides the bubbles which i wouldn't have thought of it all checks out haha

[@MrKotBonifacy]

The point/ purpose of these bow thrusters is also to suck the water from under the ice right in the front of the icebreaker (which is to be crushed in a moment) which creates area of lowered pressure ("under-" or "sub-pressure" - there's no right word for it in English), thus putting additional stress on the ice - which facilitates the break-up of it (lesser "support" from underneath).

[@joefell7845]

A vacuum.

[@MrKotBonifacy]

@@joefell7845 No. Although yes, English uses it for both "vacuum" and "lower(ed) pressure area/ space", even if the root word is Latin _vacuus_ meaning EMPTY - and the dictionary defines _vacuum_ as _a space ENTIRELY devoid of matter"_ . ("Less air" is not the same as "nothing at all", and at any rate in this scenario here there isn't any "less water", it is just "passing/ transfering the suction", so to speak, onto the ice - so "vacuum" makes even less sense here.) And then there's this second meaning of "vacuum" which is a shorthand for a vacuum cleaner, but it makes no sense whatsoever, since it doesn't (and can't) clean any vacuum - as the vacuum itself is _"devoid of any matter"_ . Therefore, QED. But yes, for the lack of better/ proper term this silly "vacuum cleaner" term was used first (when this thingy was invented), and it stuck - but it sucks. I mean... really sucks. (Oh well, you get the idea, don't ya? ;-) Anyway, "a vacuum cleaner", funnily enough, DOES NOT create any vacuum, nothing even remotely resembling it - it merely produces "slightly lower pressure", sometimes referred to as "partial vacuum" (which sounds just like "half-pregnant and is just as logical and possible), and this guy from Technology Connections channel even made a joke about it, showing (after explaining this aforementioned "concept") a partially dismantled vacuum cleaner, and saying, with a dead serious face, _"this is a partial vacuum"_ . To actually create vacuum you'd need to use vacuum pump - or take a bucket and bring some of it from the far outer space. And while at it... The funny thing about English is it often doesn't have simple words for obvious "everyday concepts" like "24-hour period of time" - which is even more "natural" thing than "a week" (and many languages do in fact use a separate word for this "day+night"/ 24 hrs), yet it uses this "whisky tango foxtrot?" term "fortnight", which is good for... God knows what - and makes not much sense whatsoever. I mean, what's so special about "TWO weeks" (which is, by the way, is easier to pronounce and also has only two syllables) - yet three, five or seven weeks are left out? ...but I digress here, and *_Happy New Year_* anyway ;-)

[@robertshiell887]

Negative pressure.

[@MrKotBonifacy]

@@robertshiell887 Nice try, but sorry - doesn't exist, CAN'T exist... ;-)

[@PabloGonzalez-hv3td]

The word is vacuum

[@paanikki]

Foating sea ice (Drift ice) is moved by wind and currents. When sections of of drift ice collide, they became pack ice, and they may form ridges that look almost like mountain ranges. They can be up to 15 meters (50 ft) thick (most of this is not visible, under the water). Icebreakers try to avoid hitting those ridges whenever possible. But sometimes the only option is to go through the ridge.

[@velocity1238]

Shouldn't the bottom of the vessel come to a dull edge then like a long blade? It would then also apply cutting forces to the top layer allowing further buckling of the sheets.

[@briangrainger2264]

In 1976 Canada began the design for a Polar 10 nuclear-powered icebreaker. Unfortunately it never made it off the drawing board.

[@MuhammadNadeem-gn4in]

Very informative...

[@richardk3347]

Let's not forget the impact of shipping disasters, especially in near pristine condition.

[@NeoclassicalRadagast]

That's what I've always thought, because I grew up in a place where ice breakers operate.

[@jefflockwood4146]

Seems like a great use for depleted uranium for the bow to crush the ice and add weight to the front

[@Arhange1790]

If I'm not mistaken Arktika even can warm up it's haul to melt ice.

[@the_mcmartin]

Great video. Very informative and well put together. Thanks for the knowledge!

[@jonnyg6001]

When I read this title, I said "I know exactly how they break ice"

[@LogainTheHumane]

Next do a video on how toilet paper doesn’t work how you think it does. People will be shocked

[@leugene1982]

I like how even short video about icebreakers demonizing Russians, they say - tell man he is a pig 100 times, on 101 he oink in response

[@johngaytes-ex7nt]

Actually it breaks the ice exactly how we thought..

[@brettscott7770]

Excellent video!

[@ldarm]

Very interesting. Top stuff 💪🏻

[@manoharjaladi5583]

Very good information covered in less time by this video...

[@CyclopathXx]

Weird, this is exactly how I thought icebreakers break the ice. 🤔

[@ReNeGaDeM321]

This is exactly how I thought they break through

[@garyfoster5546]

Is this making the ice melt faster ? Just not sure is a cool video

[@chrissyre89]

Well made informative Video

[@SpartaBobsky]

Nice! Very interesting

[@RambosGrandpa]

Well done mr. Shell

[@VBMichael_D]

Icebreakers don't break ice the way you think...yes they do. Because I already knew they ride up on top the ice and crack it from above.

[@andydelassus2734]

Submarines popping through from underneath is badass too

[@roginutah]

So are the ice breakers up there because the ice is becoming thinner, or is the ice becoming thinner because they're breaking it up all the time?

[@RobertNagel-s2z]

Great video, very informative and no stupid Al voice.

[@jmi967]

So an ideal ship would be remote-controlled, nuclear, with a convertible bow for cruising vs ice breaking..

[@ipritsker]

i wish i could use my knowledge of these machines as an Ice Breaker at the bar.

[@spencertwoeightyz3383]

i dont understand why ice thickness is even an issue for icebreakers. it seems to me that the weight of these ships would have no problem breaking through so why not deliberately try to run it onto the ice with giant bulldozer tracks. or a pile driver mounted on the front. or half a dozen other forms of specialized equipment. instead they basically just ram a ship into it over and over.

[@EedsJevsvav]

8 to 10 feet is a short ass house

[@TheDemonGamerOfFleetStreet]

They lift under the ice and the momentum of the ship does the rest and pushes through the fracture its made parting the ice.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

Quality video.

[@alc5792]

They must have huge air compressors.

[@purdybeard8772]

I’m sure the extra cost of going nuclear opposed diesel pays for itself in a year or two.

[@countrykev7772]

I’ve got somewhat of a bulbous bou myself. It looks like a baby’s arm holding an apple

[@josiahwyncott7519]

If you enjoy cold weather that would be a cool sightseeing voyage!

[@RyanAlexanderBloom]

This is how I assumed they worked.

[@BigT5]

Why do you need to go there? It breaks exactly like I thought it breaks.

[@R.Curtis]

I thought the elves hopped off of the ship with sledge hammers...

[@antebratincevic6764]

Distance lines would be much more realistic if they were drawn on a flat earth map.

[@prof.heinous191]

15:39 My advice, never mess with the Kazakhstan Navy...

[@cageordie]

Turns out I already knew all this. Wrong again. And they aren't blocks of ice, mostly they are sheets of ice, with pressure ridges. They don't break bergs.

[@michaelchamberlain4618]

United States Coast Guard has 140 ft ice breakers that use a bubbler on the harder ice in the Great lakes

[@RedArrow73]

The USA should look at converting retired Aircraft Carrier hulls for this purpose.

[@BoleDaPole]

They should turn one of these monsters into a cruise ship. Imagine the views!

[@mho0]

In Finland one was kind of converted.

[@chasbader]

Actually they do, but it was still a great video.

[@johnhiggs325]

Russia has had a need for ice breakers all along. That I know of, they only have a couple large ports that remain ice free all year. With the Black Sea being highly contested at this time, Russian shipping is under even more pressure.

[@NeoAfricanBroadcast]

They have 11 commercial ports in the east and 13 in the north. What are you talking about. This is basic knowledge on Wikipedia

[@Any_One_Else_v2]

Seriously, a little research before spouting some politically influenced bullshit. At least say something close to the truth. But the bigger problem is the other 30 idiots who gave it a thumbs up. No wonder the media can easily brainwash people

[@iffykidmn8170]

@@NeoAfricanBroadcast And of those how many remain ice free all year.

[@MojoPup]

Good video. I do wonder why the Russian ships have such a large cabin structure.

[@RickyO-e5g]

How much ice could an ice breaker break if an ice breaker could break ice

[@spudkidmandudebro]

I thought ice was broken like the beginning of Frozen?!

[@xwaram]

What then? Where are they going? What’s at the end?

[@videodude8137]

But they do break ice the way we thought. 😂

[@martyjohnson4111]

Let me guess, they push up on the ice and then the weight of the ship breaks it!!

[@ricktan5663]

I want a cruise ship with an icebreaker hull.

[@solvated_photon]

Clickbait title. Turns out ice breakers break ice exactly as everyone thinks.

[@fstlnj29]

I thought all the ice was gone.

[@johnsrabe]

Yes they do.

[@zuo3063]

Precisely how i thought the break ice. You told me nothing new.

[@stanramseyjr9388]

How thick are the hulls of those ships???

[@muppetpaster]

Yes they do.....

[@plasticlawnchair7197]

"ice breakers dont break ice the way you think" Me: well I just thought it smashes ice, but maybe it has some complex heat system or something, I'll watch The video: ice breakers break ice by smashing ice...

[@shakon1618]

Are there people that think ice breakers break ice a different way?

[@frzhelmi280]

hi im faris hilmi from sarawak. im a admirsl general of sarawak royal army. im very interested in this tank of yours and would like to buy one with my skibiddi dollars

[@Generic42]

Sit and spin, admiral 👍

[@wheressteve]

What's your whatsapp ?

[@treebeard290]

Hahahahaha

[@alexiachimciuc3199]

skibiddi dollars 😂🤣

[@jordandanks5895]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@Lord_of_ChaoSan]

It's probably not practical and someone has surely already thought this idea but I wonder- what if you had a second hull for the front breaker end that could retract when not breaking ice or the opposite- it retracts when not in the open Sea, so you can reshape the front for optimal ice-breaking and open sea travel. Of course, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about beyond this video- so I'm just throwing poo at the wall :P