Canadian CG MPV. Credit Aker Arctic.
Canada has a project to replace a large part of the Canadian Coast Guard fleet with up to 16 Multi-purpose Ships at an estimated cost of $14.2 billion (Canadian), with the first ship to be delivered in 2029.
There has not been a lot of reporting about this class, but frequent contributor Walter pointed me to two sources, Seaspan Shipyards and designer Aker Arctic. It appears they have very concrete ideas about what the class will look like.
Canadian CG MPV. Credit Aker Arctic.
MISSIONS:
According to Aker Arctic,
The MPVs will also perform cargo missions, bringing supplies to northern communities, carry out search & rescue and patrol missions, in addition to icebreaking. Most of their time will be spent on the St Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and along the Canadian East Coast. Additionally, they will have a summer Arctic mission leaving from Victoria in British Columbia and travelling north around Alaska to the Canadian Arctic.
Due to the wide variety of tasks, the long-distance mission to the western Arctic, and the fact that some of the waterways have a limited depth, the vessel needed to be compact with a shallow draught, narrow beam, high endurance, and with a large cargo capacity.
CHARACTERISTICS:
- Displacement: about 8,500 tons
- Length, overall: 99.9 meters (328′)
- Beam: 20.3 meters (66.7′)
- Draft: 6.2 meters (20’4″)
- Propulsion: diesel-electric; two azimuthing propulsion units
As is the case with all Canadian Coast Guard cutters, they have no fixed armament. It does look like it could host a medium sized helicopter and containerized systems, including perhaps below the hangar deck.
RANGE:
To me the most surprising characteristic of the ship is its range, 12,000 nautical miles. This was apparently driven by a summer Arctic mission from Victoria in British Columbia, north around Alaska to the Canadian Arctic.
ICE CLASS:
These ships will be Canadian Ice Class 4, meaning they will have the capability to maintain a speed of 3 knots through ice 4 feet thick. The Canadian Coast Guard will consider these heavy icebreakers. We don’t have any figures on horsepower, but they probably will have less than 20,000 HP which, in the USCG system, would classify them as light icebreakers.
Compared to the US Coast Guard’s “heavy” Great Lakes icebreaker, Mackinaw (3,500 tons and 73m), these will be more powerful and more than twice as large. These might be a good design for the planned second USCG Great Lakes icebreaker.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE USCG:
Aside from possible use of the design for Great Lakes icebreaker, these might be pretty close to what the USCG needs for their planned medium icebreakers. Certainly, consultation with Canadian counterparts will sharpen the focus of the US design effort. We might also have reasons to limit beam and draft.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
A ship like that would be perfect for Alaskan waters
Interesting design. Looks as if it’s designed for but not with an air/surface search radar position on top of the mast. Could easily be redesigned to add P/S 30mm Mk44 Mod 3 systems, and the helo control center would be repositioned on a US vessel.
This design drew a little bit of criticism in LinkedIn due to the fact that while it is primarily intended as a replacement for the Type 1100 (Martha L. Black class) light icebreakers and buoy tenders, at least Flight 1 will have a greater displacement than Type 1200 (Pierre Radisson class) medium icebreakers.
I’ve been toying with an idea of writing an article about how new icebreaker designs tend to be bigger than those are replacing, something along the lines of “why they don’t (and can’t) build them like they used to”.
@Tups, you probably have a more scholarly publication in mind, but I would love to publish your proposed article here if you would like.
Thanks for the offer, Chuck. If I end up writing it on work time, it’ll probably end up in the company newsletter. However, perhaps I can summarize my thoughts and observations here and now.
One reason for “the bloat” is the modern regulatory framework. For example, if you take any design from the 1970s or even 1980s, you can start off by wrapping with with four to six feet of double hull to separate fuel tanks from the shell. I recently came across a drawing of the USCG Polar class and was surprised to find out that even the ice knife at the foot of the bow, the part that would first come in contact with bottom in the event of grounding, was labeled as a fuel tank. That’s simply a no-go today. While the minimum double hull depth required by the rules is just two and a half feet, that’s rarely considered producible at western shipyards and, even if they employed particularly slender welders capable of snaking their way through the structure-dense double hull with their tools, the minimum girder depth is often insufficient to withstand the structural loads they need to support.
Another reason is the tendency to cram as much functionality and missions within a single hull as possible. Since today’s economics do not allow building dedicated hulls for different missions, most modern vessels end up being multi-disciplinary, multi-mission, multi-purpose and, according to the most vocal critics on anonymous forums, multi-useless. While my own view is more along the lines of “possible, within reason”, modern ships do often end up bigger and more expensive as initially expected, more complex and challenging to design and build, and sometimes with a few compromises in the mix to accommodate all desired capabilities. However, who am I to criticize, say, a scientist drawing up the functional requirements for what they know to be the only research ship to which they will have access during their entire career? Furthermore, over the years many older ships ended up doing tasks well outside of their initial specification and sometimes at the limit of their capabilities, and when those are turned into initial requirements for their future replacements (“…and preferably without breaking a sweat”), the end result is sometimes… well, “the bloat”.
There’s a few more in addition to those described above and even more to come as those new less energy-dense non-fossil fuels enter the game. I could even jokingly add an insistent naval architect who refuses to go where the fence is the lowest, but that’s another story…
When I sent Chuck the info I noted that these were quite the upgrade from the CCG Heavy & Medium Endurance Multi-Task Vessels they are earmarked to replace.
As well they’re a major upgrade to the Offshore Patrol Vessels they are planned to partially replace. The CCG version of the AOPV will also replace a couple of the aging OPVs in service.
Also as they have stated plans to build up to 16 of the MPVs I have to wonder if they might also be targeted to replace their aging medium icebreakers, whose planned procurement project seems to have stalled
Actually Dirt the Government is in negotiations to bring the Davie Yard in Levis Quebec (across the St Lawrence from Quebec City) into the National Shipbuilding Program. The premise is to Have Davie build a second Diefenbaker Class Polar Ice Breaker and 6 Replacement Ice Breakers to replace the Radisson class of Four Heavy Ice Breakers. .Seaspan on the West Coast is also building a Diefenbaker to replace the CCG Terry Fox and have already cut test steel to build a test model. So Seaspan will build the 16 MPV’s and 1 Polar class . When Canada has all of its planned RCN and CCG Ships built in a couple of decades we will have a combined Navy/Coast guard fleet exceeding 500,000 tonnes
There’s been very little information in public about those six medium-sized CCG “Program Icebreakers” that Davie is supposed to build. While their marketing material has included some renderings, I doubt those are of the actual design.
If I had to guess, I’d (obviously) put them somewhere between the MPVs (“light icebreakers”) and the Polar (“heavy icebreaker”). Full load displacement around 15000 tons, give or take, and maximum continuous icebreaking capability around… *throws dice* six-ish feet? Twin-azimuth stern drive and two bow thrusters to aid maneuvering in ports like in the MPV, just… bigger. Installed power around 20 megawatts. Red hull with a white stripe.
In the end it depends on what they want to do with these ships.
Shallow draught, narrow beam, and a sail-like superstructure. I hope these never meet abeam seas and winds…