Mackinaw City Michigan has the retired Coast Guard Ice Breaker Mackinaw on display. This is a famous Great Lakes ice breaker that was used for decades to keep the lakes open late in the season and open them up from ice in the spring.
The hull is still very serviceable, but the systems such as engines and electronics are dated and required tremendous resources to keep her on the water. She was replaced by a ship of the same name in 2006 and now is a museum ship.
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| TheMackinaw had a forward propeller which pulled water from under the ice and allowed the weight of the ice as well as the ships hull shape to break the ice. Additionally tremendous amounts of internal ballast could be moved to rock the side fore/aft and side to side to crush ridges of ice. The ship was never stuck in the ice, but rescued many freighters that were. |
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| Same engines used in diesel electric railroad engines - 2000 horsepower, 10 cylinder with 20 opposed pistons working on the 2 cycle principle. |
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| Captain's quarters |
Looks like they restored it nicely (compared to the pictures on the display board). How do you find this stuff?!
ReplyDeleteI bet it was loud and chilly down in the captain's quarters! Tough work!
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