MV Joseph and Clara Smallwood - Concept and Construction

Concept and Construction

Entering service in 1989, she was built by MIL Davie Incorporated in Lauzon, Quebec, and is specifically designed for the 280 nautical mile (520 km) seasonal route across the Cabot Strait between North Sydney, Nova Scotia and Argentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. A roll-on, roll-off design with a bow visor, the Joseph and Clara Smallwood has 2 vehicle decks and 5 decks above, the main passenger deck being Deck 5. She measures 179 metres in overall length and 25 metres in breadth, weighing 27,614 tons. Her capacity includes 1,200 passengers and 370 automobiles or 77 tractor trailers. She had up to 106 crewmembers.

Her sister ship, MV Caribou's design had been commissioned by CN Marine in the early 1980s and was the culmination of years of research into effective icebreaking ship designs. The resulting hull design which MV Caribou and MV Joseph and Clara Smallwood were built to is called "Gulfspan", named in part after the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The "Gulfspan" hull is unique among Canadian icebreakers in that the ship slices through sea ice, rather than using its weight to ride up onto and crushing the ice underneath. This design permits the sister ships to maintain close to regular operating speed.