Not much is needed, just a little spreading will allow the ship to push a channel thru. It is a curiosity to me, and I think a sobering observation, that even with all the technology and power of a modern steel ship designed to be where it is, the wind retains all authority. As it did in the times before engines, the days of sail alone. We can handle vastly greater seas and weather and ice and all of what nature may provide than could the wooden ships of earlier years. Yet the problems are unchanged, only the scale has been modified.
More ice is tolerable than once was true, but nature has no limitations on volume.
We have so many advantages, but still the same old troubles as all ships that wander south and north too. Simply and purely, the natural forces here are bigger than we are.