Experts at the Krylovsky Research Center are working to design an innovative icebreaker capable of making 60-meter-wide canals through ice.

Wider canals are needed to accommodate larger vessels that will be guided through ice-covered waters in the future, said Kirill Sazonov, a laboratory head at the research center. Extending the body of conventional icebreakers and increasing their power is economically inefficient, the Arctic-Info agency reports.

The project provides for building a trimaran with a main hull and two side hulls, each equipped with engines and propellers. Test results have confirmed that this type of icebreaker can create a canal up to 62 meters wide in the three-meter thick ice.