On Sunday, six icebreakers will continue their operation on the Vistula River above the dam in Włocławek. Two watercrafts will operate at the dam, and four will operate on the Włocławek Reservoir, heading up the Vistula River. The action will be carried out taking into account the weather conditions, the president of Polish Waters, Przemysław Daca said.
The head of the Polish Waters emphasized that the icebreakers’ crushing of the ice accumulated in the middle course of the Vistula River, which started on Saturday, will certainly take several weeks – yesterday the vessels reached the level of Dobrzyń on the Vistula and returned to the port in Włocławek for the night.
“We have the first day of icebreaking behind us. Icebreaking is not a race to come to Płock first. It is quite a complicated action that we must manage, taking into account various factors, including water flows, temperature, but also wind,” said Daca .
He added that the day before, the icebreakers working on the Włocławski Reservoir managed, within a few hours, to make a gutter approx. 300 m wide in the ice cover and reach approx. 20 km upstream towards Płock, to Dobrzyń on the Vistula River. Additionally, some of the ice from the reservoir was also floated down the Vistula through the Włocławek dam.
“At the moment, the icebreakers are still going on the icebreaking,” Daca assured on Sunday morning.
He explained that two icebreakers will operate in the vicinity of the Włocławek barrage, because it is a strategic facility and will keep an eye on the situation, while the other four will slacken the gutter and continue to crush ice and shuga blockages.