How 75 Sailors Sleep at -40°C on a Nuclear Icebreaker

Deep inside the Russian Arctic, a nuclear icebreaker smashes through ice up to three meters thick, around the clock, for months at a time. Aboard are about 75 sailors who eat, sleep and work while the ship rides up onto the frozen sea and crushes down through it every few seconds, in temperatures of -40°C and a polar night that lasts for weeks. In this episode of Crew Quarters we go below deck to see how they actually live: the cabins built for a floor that never stops moving, how you learn to sleep through the sound of breaking ice, the four hour watches, the men who go out on deck to chip ice in wind that freezes skin in minutes, the galley that feeds them four times a day, the reactors a few meters from their bunks, and what the darkness does to a crew after weeks without sunlight. Chapters 0:00 A normal night in the Kara Sea 1:30 The ship: built to climb, not to cut 4:00 Arriving in Murmansk 6:30 The cabin 9:00 Learning to sleep through the ice 12:00 The watches, the bridge and the deck 15:00 Four meals a day 17:30 Living next to a nuclear reactor 19:30 The polar night 22:00 The convoy 23:30 Going home Crew Quarters is a series about how people live in the places they were never supposed to: submarines, oil rigs, aircraft carriers, container ships, Antarctic stations. Subscribe for the next episode. Watch next: How 150 Sailors Survive 90 Days Underwater on a Nuclear Submarine (enlaza aquí el vídeo del submarino) This video is an educational documentary based on publicly available information about Arctic icebreaker operations. Figures are approximate and vary by ship and voyage.