''Stephan Jantzen'' is a former

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

built by

Admiralty Shipyard The JSC Admiralty Shipyards () (''formerly Soviet Shipyard No. 194'') is one of the oldest and largest shipyards in Russia, located in Saint Petersburg. The shipyard's building ways can accommodate ships of up to , in length and in width. Mili ...

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, in 1967. After decommissioning in 2005, the ship went through a number of owners before ending up as a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

in its former homeport,

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

Description

In the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union began developing a new diesel-electric icebreaker design based on the 1942-built former

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

steam-powered icebreaker ''Eisbär'' to meet the needs of both civilian and naval operators. Built in various configurations until the early 1980s, the

Project 97 icebreaker ''Dobrynya Nikitich'' class, also known by its Soviet designation Project 97, is a diverse series of diesel–electric icebreakers and other icebreaking vessels built in the Soviet Union. In total, 32 vessels were built in various configurations ...

s and their derivatives became the largest and longest-running class of icebreakers and icebreaking vessels built in the world. The single-vessel subclass Project 97E, an icebreaker built for

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, was practically identical to the unarmed icebreakers built for the

Ministry of the Maritime Fleet The Ministry of the Maritime Fleet (), usually abbreviated () and also MMF, was a government ministry in the Soviet Union. The Merchant Maritime Fleet of the USSR is abbreviated (). All Soviet merchant fleet organizations and establishments we ...

of the Soviet Union with the exception of a significantly smaller crew of 17 working with two-week rotation. ''Stephan Jantzen'' is

long overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also u ...

and has a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

of and maximum draught of . The ship's diesel-electric power plant consists of three 10-cylinder 13D100

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston, one up and one down, in one revolution of the crankshaft in contrast to a four-stroke engine which re ...

opposed-piston

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

s coupled to double-armature

direct current Direct current (DC) is one-directional electric current, flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor (material), conductor such as a wire, but can also flow throug ...

(DC) generators. They provided power to electric propulsion motors driving two fixed pitch propellers in the stern and a third motor rated at driving a propeller in the bow. The ship's

bollard pull Bollard pull is a conventional measure of the pulling (or towing) power of a watercraft. It is defined as the force (usually in tonnes-force or kilonewtons (kN)) exerted by a vessel under full power, on a shore-mounted bollard through a tow-line, ...

would allow towing a 200,000-tonne tanker at a speed of and breaking thick snow-covered ice at very slow but continuous speed.

History

1967–2005

''Stephan Jantzen'' was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...

on 15 September 1966, launched on 30 December 1966, and delivered on 30 November 1967. The ship was named after (1827–1913), a famous German captain, harbour pilot and first commander of the

German Maritime Search and Rescue Service The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service ( - DGzRS, ; lit. ''German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked Persons'') is a membership organisation in Germany. It is responsible for Search and Rescue in Germany, German territorial waters in th ...

station in

Warnemünde (, literally ''Mouth of the Warnow'') is a seaside resort and a district of the city of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Mecklenburg, Germany. It is located on the Baltic Sea and, as the name implies, at the estuary of the river Warnow (river ...

. ''Stephan Jantzen'' was operated by the state-owned shipping company Bagger-, Bugsier- und Bergungsreederei Rostock (BBB) until the

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

in 1990 and Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt Stralsund until the ship's decommissioning. Although built as an icebreaker, ''Stephan Jantzen'' was regularly used for all kinds of rescue, salvage and towing operations. In April–May 1976, it towed the 210,000-tonne crude oil tanker ''Metula'' from

Brunsbüttel Brunsbüttel (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Bruunsbüddel'') is a town in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany that lies at the mouth of the Elbe river, near the North Sea. It is the location of the western entrance to t ...

Santander, Spain Santander ( , ; ) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain. It has a population of 172,000 (2017). It is a port city located in the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Cantab ...

, for

scrapping Scrap consists of Recycling, recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have Waste valorization, mone ...

. Having earned the nickname "Iron Pig" () over its 38-year service, ''Stephan Jantzen'' was replaced in 2005 by the icebreaking multipurpose vessel ''Arkona''.

2005–2018

After decommissioning, the ship's name was shortened to ''Stephan'' and the German state put the icebreaker for sale in an online auction through the federal disposal sales and marketing agency VEBEG. The winning 430,000 euro bid was submitted by Beta Mar Limited, a shipping company registered in Greece, but the buyer never collected the vessel and forfeited the 40,000 euro downpayment. In 2006, the icebreaker was acquired by the New York City-based businessman

Paolo Zampolli Paolo Zampolli (born March 5, 1970) is an Italian-born New York City-based businessman. Since March 2025, he serves as the Ambassadors of the United States#Special envoys, representatives, and coordinators, United States Special Representative fo ...

who purchased it from the German state with the intention of rebuilding it to a luxury

yacht A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a ...

for private voyages to the Arctic and the Antarctic. Although the vessel was reportedly reflagged to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, official records indicate that it was instead registered in Panama under the name ''King Ice''. The icebreaker remained docked in Stralsund as the owner was reportedly unable to find a suitable shipyard to carry out the conversion work. The ship's name was changed back to the original sometime in 2008. In February 2009, a Florida-based

yacht broker A yacht broker is a specialist who serves yacht or boat sellers and/or buyers as a representative for the sale or purchase of a yacht or boat. The yacht broker is paid an agreed commission by the seller to market the yacht for sale, field interest ...

offered ''Stephan Jantzen'' for sale for $3.5 million (2.8 million euro). In July 2009, ''Stephan Jantzen'' was evicted from Stralsund for blocking the berth and towed to Rostock. The owner made an agreement with a newly-established non-profit association, Interessengemeinschaft Eisbrecher Stephan Jantzen ("Icebreaker Stephan Jantzen Interest Group"), for maintaining the vessel and offering tours to visitors. In July 2012, Zampolli gave the association a week's notice to vacate ''Stephan Jantzen'' as the icebreaker would be leaving Rostock for conversion to a

research ship A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated ...

. The ship was then reportedly sold to Kai Gunther Lehmann who registered it as a yacht in the Regensburg district court under the name ''König Ludwig II Von Bayern''. However, the change of ownership was disputed and the Heidelberg district court ruled in favor of Zampolli in 2015. In May 2016, the Rostock district court seized ''Stephan Jantzen'' due to outstanding berthing and security fees. Over the years, the icebreaker had suffered from

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

and lack of maintenance, and the non-profit association that had previously maintained the vessel (now renamed Technische Flotte Rostock; "Rostock Technical Fleet") first guarded the ship on a volunteer basis and later under contract with the city of Rostock. In 2018, the city of Rostock acquired the ship in a compulsory auction for 25,000 euro. A higher bid submitted on behalf of Zampolli was not accepted.

2018 onwards

After acquiring ''Stephan Jantzen'', the city of Rostock entrusted the icebreaker in care of the non-profit association Technische Flotte Rostock who opened it to the public as a

after extensive clean-up on the 30th Hanseatic Day in June 2018 and have continued restoring the vessel since.

References

External links

Technische Flotte Rostock e.V.
the non-profit association who maintains ''Stephan Jantzen'' and offers guided tours on the icebreaker Icebreakers of Germany 1966 ships Ships built at Admiralty Shipyard Museum ships in Germany {{Project 97 icebreakers