flow might bring the rig 10 is lowered so that inwardly sloped ice bending surface 41 bridges the sea surface 12 or ice water interface to engage any floating ice that may come upon the rig 10 the sloped ice bending surface 41 runs from shoulder 42 which is at the edge of the deck 26 down to neckline 44 ice deflector 45 extends downward from neckline 44 thus when an ice floe such as shown at 51 comes to the rig 10 the ice bending surface 41 causes the leading edge of the ice floe 51 to submerge under the sea surface 12 and apply a significant bending force that breaks large ice floes into smaller less damaging less hazardous bits of ice for example it is conceivable that an ice floe being hundreds of feet and maybe miles across could come toward the rig 10 if the ice floe is broken into bits that are less than twenty feet in the longest dimension such bits are able to pass around the rig 10 with much less concern ice has substantial compressive strength being in the range of 4 to 12 mpa but is much weaker against bending with typical flexure strength in the range of 0 3 to 0 5 mpa as shown the force of the ice floe 51 moving along the sea surface 12 causes the leading edge to slide under the sea surface 12 and caused section 52 to break off with the ice floe 51 broken into smaller floes such as section 52 and bit 53 the smaller sections tend to float past and around the rig 10 without.