In a significant international defense and industrial collaboration, North Vancouver's Seaspan Shipbuilding has finalized a deal to provide its ready-for-production icebreaker design to the United States Coast Guard. The agreement, part of a tripartite pact between Canada, the U.S., and Finland, will see the same design developed for the Canadian Coast Guard used to build a new fleet of American Arctic Security Cutters.
A Design Forged in Canadian Strategy Goes International
The company announced the finalized agreements on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, though the contract has been in development since the previous summer. The design in question is the Multi-Purpose Icebreaker (MPI) that Seaspan has been engineering since 2020 for the Canadian Coast Guard under Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy. Canada plans to acquire up to 16 of these vessels in a program valued at $14.2 billion, with the first delivery expected around 2030.
Seaspan is not building the U.S. vessels directly. Instead, it has teamed up with the winning bidder for the U.S. Coast Guard contract—a consortium of American Bollinger Shipyards Lockport LLC and Finnish Rauma Marine Constructions Oy. Seaspan's role is to provide the complete design and supply-chain packages. The U.S. Coast Guard officially awarded its contract on December 29, aiming to build six icebreakers to bolster its Arctic presence.
Bolstering North American Arctic Sovereignty
Seaspan Shipyards CEO John McCarthy hailed the deal as a "true success story" for the National Shipbuilding Strategy, with benefits now extending beyond Canada's borders. He emphasized that the interoperability from a common design and supply chain for the Canadian and American coast guard fleets will create long-term opportunities for collaboration throughout the vessels' operational lives.
This move comes as both nations actively seek to enhance their year-round operational capabilities in the Arctic, a region of growing strategic importance. With nations like Russia and China increasing their activities in the resource-rich area, controlling sovereign borders and securing emerging shipping lanes has become a top priority.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem stated in a release that equipping the Coast Guard with these new cutters is crucial to reasserting American maritime dominance in the face of adversarial growth. The vessels are intended to secure Alaskan borders and provide the mobility needed to respond to Arctic crises.
Build Schedule and Technical Specifications
Under the build plan, Finland's Rauma Marine Constructions will construct the first two U.S. icebreakers using Seaspan's design, with the first delivery targeted for 2028. Bollinger Shipyards will build the remaining four, with its first vessel expected in 2029.
The Seaspan design, developed in partnership with Finnish firm Aker Arctic Technology Inc., is for a formidable 100-metre-long vessel capable of operating in ice up to 1.2 metres thick and boasting an impressive range of approximately 22,000 kilometres.
The announcement follows recent geopolitical statements concerning the Arctic, including calls from U.S. political figures regarding Greenland, highlighting the heightened focus and tension surrounding the region's future. The Seaspan deal represents a concrete step by allied nations to solidify their industrial and operational footprint in the Far North through shared technology and cooperation.
