Icebreaker Yermak

Yermak on the Baltic Sea. Before 1917.

Yermak () (sometimes spelled Ermak) was a Russian icebreaker, often referred to as the world's first true icebreaker, with a strengthened hull shaped to ride over and crush pack ice.

Yermak was built for the Imperial Russian Navy under the supervision of Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle upon Tyne at its Low Walker yard and launched in 1898. It was named after the famous Russian explorer of Siberia, Don Cossack ataman Yermak Timofeyevich.

It was commissioned on 29 October 1898, and on the very first voyage it reached 81°21'N north of Spitsbergen in 1899.

See also

*Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet
*Alexander Stepanovich Popov

External links

*History of icebreakers, by the US Coast Guard