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.
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www.amsa.gov.au/media
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Thank Drudge Report for linking this posting.
I am surprised they even still have icebreakers. After all, all of the polar ice was supposed to have melted by now. Gore and so many other “scientists” have told us so.
I say let the tree-huggers await global warming!!
Headline: U.S. Coast Guard on mission to rescue America-hating global warming cultists and their would be Chicom rescuers.
Australia is complaining too at the expense as it is a Russian ship. Ours could not penetrate the ice. They feel this ship was a commercial venture and should cop the cost. It was not a scientific venture, and was funded by paying passengers. The antarctic is a frozen region, and dangerous.It’s is not the place to take people who are not experienced and I bet no other ventures like this will be attempted and those involved cop the cost of rescue missions. Thank you America again. Best of luck.
These cuckoos will return in a few months when the ice thaws and then say, “SEE? The warming is causing the ice to melt”.
I sure as heck hope that they are billed for the rescue of both ships. The captain of the first ship should also lose his Captain’s license due to error in judgement.
How the F cold is it the Antarctic, but they were hell bent on the believe that global warming has melted all the ice and it would be clear sailing. I guess God showed them how wrong they really were.
Hi The Crone, but on the bright side, the Chinese don’t like Russia either, I bet they are giving the rescued comrades a de briefing. If the hulls on both these ships were not iron, the ice would gradually crush them. I wonder if they are insured? Suggestions are that the insurers should pick up the cost of rescue too. What are they going to do with these ships, leave them there? Ah well with Penny Wong yelling that Australia has had the hottest temps so far, proving global warming is right, then how does she explain this? We have hot climates and cool climates, and we do like UK experience hot weather. But generally that is followed by storms and rain. Like in UK.
They had an unseasonable hot summer in 2013, and now suffering floods.
Robert Muir says: January 4, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Russian Ice Breaker is much bigger than the USCG’s.Plus why the hell do we have to pay for this??
The Russian ships while larger can only break ice up to 16 ft, the Polar Sea can break up to 21 ft. With estimates of 13 ft. ice the fudge factor is in the Polar Star’s favor.
Lord Wellington of Colorado… (ahem),
While it is, no doubt, in my case, due to my writing poorly, you have misunderstood all or nearly all of those of us urging that the culpable parties (i.e., the adults in the Turney, et. al., group) be returned to Antarctica and left there. We assumed that everyone else here was as well-informed as we on the issue and simply did not bother to put that detail into our comments.
I appreciate very much your speaking up, for you have let me know that I need to be more careful to include EVERY-thing in what I write. The return of the spoiled brat ignoramuses was only implied and should have been made explicit. Gail Combs posted above my post and, from exchanges with her in the past, I think it likely that she understood what I (and most of the others) meant (sloppily, in my case) to say.
Thanks for keeping us on our written communication toes,
Janice
Well, I have only a tiny right to say this, but, glad to be able to help, Bush Bunny! Thanks for your appreciation. Glad to see you are back from your little “Christmas break.” I’m sure that yes, indeed, your family was happy you left WUWT on its own for awhile. I hope you, too (yes, I saw your “Merry Christmas” greeting to us all), had a lovely Christmas and…. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Janice I didn’t stop writing I didn’t get many emails from WUWT over the Christmas break, so to speak. But I was pretty tied up with Christmas and a sick dog. He’s OK, only 10, an obiedience dog but long term medication for itching has made him blind in one eye. We didn’t notice it either would you believe until a few days ago. Now he is on a rich Omega 3 diet. By the way, although on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, our temps are higher than average, 31 C. But it will be followed by storms of course as normal. Despite Penny Wrong saying climate change is real because of the high temps. Geesus, Australia is supposed to be hot!
The Russian and Chinese will probably get a bill for the rescue not the American taxpayers. The ice that trapped the Russian vessel is not actually newly frozen ice but pack ice that could be decades old or older. When the winds shift, it piles ice up into layers. A shift in the wind over time could free the ships even before the Polar Star arrives or it could remain until fall. Summertime in the Antarctic does not add ice but sees it melt away until the fall.
Al Gore should be forced to pay this tremendous expense. He spent years getting rich off of these global warming loons. He bares full responsibility for their risky, foolish behavior. All these record cold temperatures and “unexpected massive amounts of ice” are the real “inconvenient truth”! You gullible LIBS can start your apology tour any time. We’ll all be waiting next to the heater!
Today’s earth science lesson. Winter in the northern hemisphere is summer in the southern hemisphere…. Jan 4th It is their 4th of [June]. get it now???
Let me give you a clue !!! And take it from there ? Have you ever heard of a 50, 100, 500
And a 1,000 year storm, flood or event ??? Well that’s what structural Engineers design
Bridges, and structural components for !!! The worst that can happen in any of those years,
Now take it from there ?? Our weather patterns look like the Dow Jones. That’s why they
Call it ..? “” WEATHER “”. Or not ??? Now take it from there. Each year is like a finger print.
Mother Nature lives here !!! We are just Visiting.
“OMG,” cried Obama. “We gotta get involved down there — gotta get those ships out of that gosh-darned ice real, real quick. This story is making us ‘climate change’ believers look silly. I mean really — don’t I have enough problems with my glorious Obamacare program?
The U.S. mass producing ice breakers…That actually can help everyone….keep all the manufacturing of these ships within the US supplying jobs…..our major purchaser would more than likely be the Canadians…its something all of the Arctic and Antarctic nations need….be sure to actually sell the ships and not donate them….instead of trying to tax everyone to death if you want to make money you can still use the climate….instead of lying about global warming how about privatizing ice breaking in shipping lanes….anyone even thought about this
“Milodon Harlani,” (lol) glad to hear that all is well. Why not post under your real name all the time?
It’s good to see that the rescue ships are getting aid, though I agree with those who decry the idea that any of this expense be born by taxpayers (of any country).
Note that this makes icebreaker number four – count ’em, four – called to this spot because of a misguided and badly misinformed global warming expedition.
Hey, wait a minute. The “man’s CO2 did it” crowd, which made up the entire passenger list on this little trip (scientists and students; there were no bona fide “tourists” on board), are, generally speaking, front and center blaming America for whatever perceived injustice they happen to be barking about on a given day. Isn’t is kinda dumb to go ahead and rescue them? Besides, their stated goal of retracing the path taken by an expedition that spent a year trapped (not “beset”) in sea ice is just beginning! Why spoil their outing?
Polar Star now about three hours out of Sydney, going at 17.7 knots, heading 183 degrees.
The scientific mission was to document reduced sea ice. Seems even in the antartic summer the sea ice is MORE than normal. Oops. The obsession with warming completely misses the reality of the situation. We should be in an ice age, due to orbital variations. If it wasn’t for global warming we would be much colder than now. You don’t have to have warming to prove that humans are causing climate change. And sometimes it’s a good thing in the short term. Check out this link: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/01/of-orbits-and-ice-ages/
Interesting, I have yet to hear, from the media in general, to the best of my recollection, that is is SUMMER down there! Oh . . . I forgot it is “climate change”. . . NOT “global warming.” My mistake.
U.S. Coast Guard to the rescue…doin’ it since 1790. Proudly served in the USCG back in the day and remember when the Polar Star was commissioned. Semper Paratus.
If Dopebama were really running the operation, having heard that there is a Russian ship involved, he would have sent the Polar Star to Moscow, Idaho (one of the 57-plus U.S. states) to rescue them. Thankfully, he is just a teleprompter-reading puppet… of course, there are those who pull the strings, but, well, just ask Rahm Emmanuel what they are… heh, heh. Thank — the — Lord!
…… uh, oh, I can hear Ed Mertin’s hobnailed boots stomping across the square …. gotta go! (don’t worry, mod, I won’t — oh, I really hope I won’t! — respond to EM)
We’ll be there. Credit card number please?