On an ice-breaking mission

As the A.V. Sandusky cruises through a marina in Kent Narrows, there's an unmistakable creaking and crunching sound of ice meeting steel. The ship shudders a bit, sending shards of ice flying and breaking away chunks of ice that float away.

The Sandusky - out on its first ice-breaking mission of the winter yesterday - is an 80-foot ship with a reinforced steel hull that obliterates ice that makes the waters of the Chesapeake Bay treacherous for watermen and other commercial boaters this time of year.

The Sandusky uses brute force to break up the ice, ramming into the ice sheet until it gives way.

"Basically, we...