Maritime traffic has increased in the Baltic Sea as well in the Arctic Sea in recent years. As the climate becomes warmer this trend is expected to continue. It is expected that more ships designed for open-water operations will enter ice-infested waters and propeller damages due to ice-propeller interactions become inevitable. Upgrading the propeller ice class should however be avoided because it is at the cost of the propulsion efficiency. In this pre-study project, we aimed to improve a propeller’s ice performance while keeping its open-water profile through implementing laser surface treatment on the propeller blades. Numerical simulations and experiments were carried out. It was found that laser cladding treatment has great potential to improve the propeller performance.