SS Sankt Erik

"File:SS Sankt Erik.jpg SS Sankt Erik moored outside of the Vasa Museum in 2005. Note the shape of the bow which is designed to ride up over the ice.
Career
Name:	Isbrytaren II
Owner:	Stockholms Hamnstyrelse
Port of registry:	Sweden
Builder:	Finnboda Shipyard of Stockholm, Sweden
Yard number:	361
Completed:	March 1915
Renamed:	SS Sankt Erik in 1959
Refit:	1958
Fate:	Decommissioned 1977 and became a museum ship in 1980 moored in Stockholm, Sweden
General characteristics
Class and type:	Icebreaker
Tonnage:	432 tonnes empty 1441 tonnes gross
Length:	58.09 m (191 ft)
Beam:	16.99 m (55 ft)
Draft:	6.50 m (21 ft)
Installed power:	Two triple expansion reciprocating steam engines. The main, aft one is 2800 hp and drives a single screw. A 1200 hp engine forward of the boiler room drives a screw in the bow. Four Scottish boilers. Originally coal fired but converted to oil in 1958.
Propulsion:	a single screw in the stern and a single screw in the bow
Speed:	13 knots
Crew:	30

The SS Sankt Erik is an icebreaker, and a museum ship attached to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

She was launched in 1915 as the Isbrytaren II, "Ice breaker II", and was a conventionally constructed Baltic icebreaker, with a strengthened bow shaped to be lifted up onto the ice to crush it and a forward facing screw to push water and crushed ice along the side of the hull. She also has heeling tanks which can be filled and emptied with seawater in turn to rock the ship to widen the channel. Her reciprocating steam engines are the most powerful functioning ones in Sweden.

Although she was the country's first large icebreaker, she was owned by the city of Stockholm and used to keep the channels around it clear of ice. She was also sometimes used outside of the Stockholm area by the Swedish government since they had contributed towards her cost.

She was renamed in 1958 during an extensive refit, which saw her converted from coal to oil, the bridge was enclosed to protect the deck crew from the weather, and radar and radio fitted.

References

• Vasa museum
• Paper on the restoration of the ship presented at the Third International Conference on the Technical Aspects of the Preservation of Historic Vessels in 1997
• Miramar Ship Index - Isbrytaren II