6.30am AEDT Sunday 05 January 2014
US Coast Guard ice breaker to assist ships beset in ice in Antarctica
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) has requested the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star icebreaker to assist the vessels MV Akademik Shokalskiy and Xue Long which are beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay.
The US Coast Guard has accepted this request and will make Polar Star available to assist.
The Polar Star has been en route to Antarctica since 3 December, 2013 – weeks prior to the MV Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay. The intended mission of the Polar Star is to clear a navigable shipping channel in McMurdo Sound to the National Science Foundation’s Scientific Research Station. Resupply ships use the channel to bring food, fuel and other goods to the station. The Polar Star will go on to undertake its mission once the search and rescue incident is resolved.
RCC Australia identified the Polar Star as a vessel capable of assisting the beset vessels following MV Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice overnight on 24 December, 2013. RCC Australia has been in discussion with the US Coast Guard this week to ascertain if the Polar Star was able to assist once it reaches Antarctica.
The request for the Polar Star to assist the beset vessels was made by RCC Australia to the US Coast Guard on 3 January, 2014. The US Coast Guard officially accepted this request and released the Polar Star to RCC Australia for search and rescue tasking at 8.30am on 4 January, 2014.
The Polar Star will leave Sydney today after taking on supplies prior to its voyage to Antarctica.
It is anticipated it will take approximately seven (7) days for the Polar Star to reach Commonwealth Bay, dependent on weather and ice conditions.
At 122 metres, the Polar Star is one of the largest ships in the US Coast Guard fleet. It has a range of 16,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. The Polar Star has a crew of 140 people.
The Polar Star is able to continuously break ice up to 1.8 metres (6ft) while travelling at three (3) knots and can break ice over six (21ft) metres thick.
RCC Australia will be in regular contact with the relevant US Coast Guard RCC at Alameda, California, and the Captain of the Polar Star during its journey to Antarctica.
Media Enquiries: 1300 624 633
www.amsa.gov.au/media
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“The Polar Star is able to continuously break ice up to 1.8 metres (6ft) while travelling at three (3) knots and can break ice over six (21ft) metres thick.”
Now that is some impressive specs. Good luck and here is hoping that the crews on AS & XL all fare well for the next week.
Oh joy – now American taxpayers get whacked as well.
Blitherin’ fools!
Cue three hot choruses of, “The American Patrol”. I wonder if the Aussies will take the hint and acquire an ice-breaker man enough for the job? Apparently the ice-island being blamed for the pack-ice has been skulking around the coast since 1987-ish. That’s a long time unmelted in a supposedly warming Antarctic.
What will that add to the cost for a publicity stunt gone bad? Isn’t there a better use for taxpayer money than blowing it on hot-dogging scientists and journalists? They are hoist on their own petard.
What is the “Polar Stars” carbon footprint?
The Grauniad is not going to like this.
I previously posted this You Tube video over at SDA and someone posted it here a few days ago.
It is even more germane (and more funny) today. I do not know how to embed a You Tube video.
Corb Lund singing The Truck Got Stuck ☺ Silly, but fun.
http://youtu.be/pDY6bWT5oTM
So who is Guarding the Coast ?.
grumpyoldmanuk says at January 4, 2014 at 12:45 pm
Interesting. Do you have a reference or a that?
It was simply a matter of time before this whole global warming debacle ended up costing US Taxpayers.
Correction:
Do you have a reference or a link for that?
Sorry. Stubby finger syndrome.
Let’s not forget that the original bunch who got stuck were “Global Warming” nut jobs. Why now just let then sit there until “global warming” melts their stupid asses out of there?
All this expense caused by Global Warming fanatics that cannot accept their theories were based on faked data.
No doubt the tax payers of several nations are going to be stuck with the soaring cost of this fiasco. Beyond the direct costs, I fancy that I can hear the the anticipatory rubbing together of the hands of many legal eagles.
@Heraldo Ortega Nobody, Doncha know the US only has one ship! OMG!!!!!111
Does the Polar Star have deck guns? (A polar-class ice breaker doing intercept runs or picket duty along the coast? Riiiiight …)
.
Let Darwin rescue them.
Damn that Global Warming!
Canada’s ice breakers are overwhelmed working the heavy east coast ice – I have friends stranded for a week unable to get home due to ice and these morons tie up three ice breakers for a global warming lark? Plus the Russian ship and crew. Now the American taxpayers have to set up to the plate for those narcissists? This has passed being funny – I hope those idiots are fire, belittled, and roundly castigated for their arrogance. I have no sympathy for those fools.
Didn’t see it mentioned in the story, but it’s worth pointing out…
The ship stuck in the ice was on a “global warming” research mission.
I wonder what they found.
It is an academic mission to research global warming caused by man. Ahem… No comment that these recognized experts in anthropomorphism failed to correctly predict the ice immediately in their future, while they attempt to predict the ice quantity years out in front of them.
Will the media ever challenge these assertinions that the sky is falling, or is it just too much fun freaking people out that they will be the last persons ever to glimpse the natural beauty of the earth before it descends into chaos and pain.
The poor children will never know snow or ice and the poor polar bears will never be able to float around on chunks… Blah blah blah… There is more “change” than your “philosophy has ever dreamt of Horatio, get used to it.
And let’s not forget it’s still summertime down there…
Love the irony…..And will the NYT and NBC scream about the cost to taxpayers to save the global warmists in their failed attempt to send a report substantiating their (obviously false) claims about man made global warming melting the ice caps? Somehow I doubt it.
So a rescue ship for the rescue ship for the rescue ship. We could just leave them in the hopes that Global Warming saves them, but that would be like saying “I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies.
I confess to ignorance when it comes to breaking up ice however couldn’t it be either bombed or dynamited?