The Polar 8 Project was a Canadian shipbuilding project intended to provide the

Canadian Coast Guard The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG; french: links=no, Garde côtière canadienne, GCC) is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in ...

with a large and heavy class

icebreaker 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-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

capable of operating year-round in the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arct ...

. The project was developed as a means to assert Canada's sovereignty in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. It commenced in 1985 but was cancelled in 1990 while still in the final design stage. It was Canada's direct response to the unauthorized transit through the Northwest Passage in summer 1985 by , a

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

icebreaker. Polar 8 refers the capability of the ship in ice of that thickness in feet, in this case . Initiated in 1985, the vessel was never constructed and the project was cancelled in 1988.

Background

Canada's claims to their

Arctic region The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

and the

were challenged by the United States in the 1969 and 1985. In 1969, the American

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crud ...

traversed the entirety Northwest Passage with the help of Canadian and American icebreakers. The transit was difficult and in response, the Canadian government passed the

Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act The ''Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act'' (1970, R.S.C. 1985) (the ''Act'') is a Government of Canada statute to prevent pollution of areas of the arctic waters adjacent to the mainland and islands of the Canadian arctic. The Government of Can ...

. In 1972, Canada had "ice-covered areas" added to the

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 c ...

agreement, and in 1982, the agreement included exclusive economic zones, expanding Canada's control over their Arctic area. In 1985,

controversy Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...

arose again after the

sailed around through the Northwest Passage without having asked permission from the Canadian government, which was required following the changes to the Law of the Sea agreement. This was further amplified by the inability of Canada's icebreaker to follow the American ship once the ice got too thick. Studies into the construction of large icebreakers for Canada's north began in 1971. The Canadian Coast Guard initially tried to acquire two types of polar icebreaker, a Polar 7 and a Polar 10. The Polar 7 was to be of conventionally-powered design and the project was approved in the mid-1970s and German and Milne Ltd of

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, the largest naval architect firm in the country, were employed to design the ship. In 1976, the Canadian government asked German and Milne to design a Polar 10, nuclear-powered icebreaker. However, by March 1978, the required design had changed to a hybrid nuclear-conventionally powered vessel and in July 1979, proposals for the propulsion were received from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France. Due to various reasons, the nations pulled out, save for France by the following year. The lack of competition for the hybrid-powered Polar 10 icebreaker design led the Canadian government to consider its alternatives. This led to the Polar 8 Project, a conventionally-powered large icebreaker. A conventionally-powered Polar 10 icebreaker design was rejected as being too costly to operate.

Design and project initiation

Designed to be capable of year-round operations in the Arctic regions, the vessel was ordered based on the increased oil exploration activity in the

Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...

and future Arctic oil and mineral exploration. The ship was also required to exert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic area after Canada's claim to the area had been challenged by the United States. The ship was to have a planned

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

of and powered by either a

diesel electric Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine ...

or diesel direct engine driving three shafts, creating . This would have given the vessel a maximum speed of at sea. The vessel was to be capable of uninterrupted progress in pack ice and the steel that the ship was to built from was to be tested down to . The ship's of aviation fuel would have carried in tanks separated from the outer hull to minimize the chances of pollution. The vessel itself would have carried of

diesel fuel Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...

. The ship would have been equipped with laboratories, a

moon pool A moon pool is a feature of marine drilling platforms, drillships and diving support vessels, some marine research and underwater exploration or research vessels, and underwater habitats, in which it is also known as a wet porch. It is an open ...

and other deck equipment for scientific research. The ship would have been able to operate up to three helicopters. At the time, it would have been the world's largest icebreaker. In September 1985, the

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government chose the Polar 8 design for construction. The

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had reservations about the project, claiming that the ship had no way to respond to northern submarine threats and that the cost of the vessel would exceed its estimated cost of $300–500 million. The competition to build the vessel was messy and the Mulroney government created a committee to sift through the proposals to find the best three.

Construction and cancellation

The decision to award the construction contract was taken in 1987 when it was awarded to Versatile Pacific Shipyards Limited of North Vancouver,

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. Soon after the project was awarded, Versatile Pacific Shipyards began having financing problems. The costs also began to rise, as Versatile claimed it had been too optimistic in its estimates. In May 1988, the design team asked for a further $70–80 million if the vessel was to keep its diesel-electric propulsion. The design was completed in 1988 and estimated costs had climbed over the budgeted amount. This led the Canadian Coast Guard to ask the Versatile team to come up with a design based on a cheaper propulsion system. Before this could go any further, the Versatile Pacific Shipyards were put up for sale in December 1988. Funding for the project was reduced over the following years and on 19 February 1990, the program was officially cancelled, mainly due to rising costs, now pegged at $680 million. Following the Polar 8 Project cancellation, the Canadian Coast Guard funded the modernization overhaul and hull extension of the large icebreaker in order to maintain a strategic presence in the Arctic Ocean. The Canadian Coast Guard also loaned a former commercial icebreaker, , in 1992 as a stop-gap measure.

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * {{cite web , last=Pullen , first=T.C. , date=September–October 1986 , url=http://www.carc.org/pubs/v14no4/5.htm , title=That Polar Ice-breaker , magazine=

Northern Perspectives Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...