Safety of Ships Navigation in Ice and Operational Effectiveness

The solving of the ice navigation problems depends not only on the safe operation of ships, but on the safety of harbors operation in the ice conditions. These tasks are important for navigation in Russia, as decreases the set of acting icebreakers and increases the number of foreign ships, calling at these harbors. The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (Register) introduced in 2012 the process of researches of ships ice-going properties and certification of ship's ice suitability (assigning of the Ice Navigation Certificate). Requires the accumulation of experience and development of the appropriate techniques to choose the most important characteristics that affect the ice-going properties of ship, as well as the definition of ship ice-going properties criteria. This study reports on the methodological approaches to assess the safety of the navigation in broken ice and the ice-going properties of ships, both in autonomous navigation and in course behind the icebreaker in the caravan.