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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I note that one of the sponsors for the Spirit of Mawson expedition is:
http://www.meteoexploration.com/
They claim to provide weather forecasts inter alia for Antarctica. Why did Turney need to rely on Anthony Watts in the end?
Wouldn’t it be fitting if all 50 of the man made global warming “scientists” all froze to death in the “melting sea ice” they were studying in the antarctic SUMMER!
98% of mainstream media stories have hidden why these clowns were there in the first place!
btw, the ice cap in antarctica is now RECORD SIZE……if melting icecaps are proof of global warming, then record ice caps are proof of Socialist Democrat LYING!
I see the Drudge Report has a direct link to this story. When the Huffington Post links to a story on WUWT,…er… (fat chance of that).
After the US Coast Guard rescues them Obama will have to immediately apologize to Russia, China, and Australia for “American Exceptionalism.”
So the ice breaker can break ice 21ft thick. I guess they do this by riding up on the ice and depending on the weight of the ship to crack it. Considering the ice that trapped the Chinese is 17 feet thick – this will be a true test.
Considering the joke that Mother Nature is playing on the ‘know it all’ folks, what will they do when the USA ship gets stuck? LOL
Remember this is the height of summer 🙂
By the way is the ‘eco freak pinky crowd’ going to pay for all of this? How are the valid research stations going to get resupplied? A lot of real, serious research is being delayed because of total, absolute stupidity.
If those Climate Scientists weren’t so determined to prove the Antarctic ice was melting, none of this would be happening.
Why don’t those Climate Scientists start trying to prove there’s a Fairy Godmother? It’s safer and less costly!
These are now the most expensive watermelons ever transported anywhere.
Could be embarrassing. USA rescuing Chinese and Russian vessels.
I thought about icebreaker design requirements and limitations last night after watching a video of Polar Star breaking maximum ice. She’d go ahead until stalled and then back down the opened lead for a ship length or so. Then accelerate ahead to contact and forge ahead until stalled again.
A nuclear power plant has design rate of power change design limitations that prevent, particularly repeated, transients to 100% Np. Exceeding those limits will result in low pressure and/or low level in the plant pressurizing component due to things like loop transit time delaying the core’s response.
The large Russian NP icebreakers are more massive than even the USCG ships to support the NP infrastructure and F=ma works against the large ship’s acceleration.
Polar Star has two propulsion power sources for this, acceleration, reason. The diesel-electric plant for efficient transiting, that can be supplemented by the GT for step changes in power at the cost of fuel efficiency.
Without a doubt when T.S.H T.F. call the USA. Be safe coasties and getter’done!
Lets be clear the passengers of the Shokalskiy were already rescued by helicopter. The crew made the decision to stay with the ship. This is not a humanitarian mission but a salvage mission to free a ship from the ice. A ship that does not belong to us. If our Coasst Guard is going to be a maritime AAA service we should charge for the service. Before going to the Antarctic read about an explorer named Shackelton and the boat Endurance.
Global Warming or Climate Change the outcome of expectations are the same. Merely, there is no such thing. Yet again the media in the U.S. does not tell the truth, the whole truth so help me God. No mention in the article for the purpose of this stranded ship and why it is stuck on the ice.
Like the scam labeled carbon tax, global warming and climate change are yet again another reach into the tax payers pockets to steal hard earned dollars away from people who do not have a degree after their name. Fortunate for those people are those of us who do have degrees and can speak out against this sham. We need to communicate to those who will listen and tell them they are being had by not only this administration, but big business, big corporations, environmentalists and others with self-interests to secure tax dollars to fund their folly’s.
Al Gore should be stripped of the millions of dollars he has raped from the American Taxpayers. He should be immediately thrown into jail and confined there for the rest of this natural life. You see I am not a total denier of global warming or climate change, I do believe the earth does proceed in cycles. We do go through warming periods as well as cooling periods and this has been documented through out history. Ice cores can also prove all of this as well, and more swings and hockey stick graphs can be computer generated to show how thousands of years ago those “swings” have been even more catastrophic for earth’s inhabitants. The only difference between then and now is the amount of tax dollars scam artists have available to them.
The tables have now been turned on these people, and I hope to God they are relegated into the science history books as the charlatans they most certainly are. Hopefully one day next to those who said they could control the weather by shooting cannons into the air to force it to rain we will read next to it how global warming and climate change conspiracy theorists are described and made fun of.
Sparky2 says:
January 5, 2014 at 3:53 am
“US Coast Guard to the rescue again! What a great branch of the military”
Not military, they are under DHS. Even though they fall under the UCMJ, they are not subject to DOD unless during time of war. There have been some great posts about the Guard including some good insight from former “Breaker Rats”. Special thanks to Larry and Oldcarboater. I did a DeepFreeze in ’72-73 and had an interesting encounter with a Russian Breaker in the White Sea during the summer of ’70. Atka/Southwind was giving to the Russians during WWll as part of LendLease, they gave it back with railroad spikes driven into the propulsion generators and motors. 6 Fairbanks Morse 2000 HP diesels driving generators then electric propulsion motors. The diesel/electric combo gives better propeller control. If the wheels are stopped and hit a growler you will shear a blade or two. This is considered bad form, the OOD will be subject to much abuse from the crew when they have to layover in Sydney for repairs. (The abuse being required to consume vast quantities of adult beverages, at no cost to the offender). The future OER may not be as forgiving.
As an aside, for any people remaining who have done Thule AFB / Baffin Bay cruises in the ’60’s and 70’s I recommend a book “Ice”. It was written by a Professor from UMD. He along with another Professor from Florida describes in great detail the flow of fresh water from Baffin Bay and how it mixes with the Gulf Stream. Remember all those “water samples”? They helped determine the salinity and actual flow paths of the various ocean rivers.
EDIT: A new Author is born; with a new book entitled Turney’s Troubling Torment.
This is the same Ice Al Gore said would be gone/melted Send that Crook the bill
All’s Obama, the Climate Cange Cooks, (CCC), Redistribution cult of Commies need now for total fail is to have Lt. for life John F. Kerry (Worlds biggest failed liar) to take command of the Polar Star and all of us get IceBoated by Kerry’s lie based support.
Calling all hands of all Ice Breaker Ships, form a blog, put the facts up and “Ice Boat Them”.
With all due regard, and with due consideration to your welcome contribution to this thread, we will have to disagree on the matter of boiler lifetimes and assuring operating crew safety; as was noted above, the US CG Polar Star has had her share of boiler events (not involving a rupture of the pressure vessel proper fortunately), and I am sure she has been properly maintained as well, but, all equipment, especially something as safety critical (with regard to a breech) as a boiler ‘age’ with time and use. Between vibration (conducted from the diesel engines and also the frame of the ship while working the ice), temperature cycling, corrosion, flexure of the boiler structure on each re-pressurization on start-up etc take their toll and while inspections can be performed, that inspection must be performed over every square inch of the boiler(s), and that means bare-ing the exterior of each boiler for said inspection.
And, of course, the ‘inspection’ is more than just the expected “Visual” or Mark I Eyeball method, but includes Liquid penetrant testing (fluorescent dye reveals seeps and leaks), Ultrasonic testing and Eddy current testing on welds and all. Xray inspection on some area can be used for fine-grain inspection, but is difficult in the field. And all this other ‘inspecting’ will be in the tight spaces aboard the ship!
This is just one aspect of assuring a ship in ‘rugged’ duty like the Mackinaw is fit for duty, and not a hazard in operation to her crew.
I’m sure economic reasons existed for making the decision to sideline the 55 yr old (in 2000) ship. While sentimentality may desire otherwise, a cost-benefit analysis including extensive re-work and updating of systems from stem to stern versus the (probable) ‘patchwork’ updating of systems over the years like the navigation systems utilized, starting with he use of NDBs (non-directional beacons surrounding the Great Lakes in 1944) to the use of Loran A and Loran C in the 50s through the 90, then in the last two decades GPS. Communications systems like wise became updated from MW comms around 2 MHZ (2182 used to be the ‘guard’ channel which all bridge crews would monitor for emergency calls for instance) to VHF in the 60s into the 1970s and now satellite comms.
Similar advances in engine control as well as autopilot and other systems monitoring have occurred. And I haven’t touched yet what requires rebuilding/revamping in the way of the six Fairbanks Morse 10-cylinder engines and attached generators or the ‘switchboards’ and other controls used to route the energy they produce to the propulsion motors on the three props (one forward and two stern)!
Hopefully the keel didn’t need ‘change out’ after 55 some years of breaking ice on the Great Lakes!
.
NBC “Meet the Press” aka “Meet the Wizzers” :
Pres. Obama and Sec. of State “Iceboated” by right wing bloggers supported by “Big Oil”.
Global warming (aka climate change) is the religion of the stupid.
http://www.zazzle.com/FirstPrinciples?rf=238518351914519699
More hard-earned tax dollars thrown down an unconstitutional rat hole by the Feds.
Polar Star now slowed down. Speed 13.2 knots/ at 186 degrees. About 1800 NM to go.
I fully expect the bill to send a U.S. icebreaker to save that ship go directly to the expedition leader…if it doesn’t, I’m going to raise holy hell. I think the tab from other failed rescue efforts (Chinese icebreaker, helicopters, Australian icebreakers, etc.) should also go to the expedition leader. L’il ol me in Maryland knew that Antarctic ice was currently at historic highs…the fact that a global warming “climate scientist” leading this expedition didn’t know that demonstrates extreme incompetence or worse….DENIAL!
This reminds me of a bad B war movie. You send out a scout and he doesn’t return. Then you sent out someone to find the scout. And later you send out another warrior to find the other two. At some point you end up with no warriors to protect the ground you just took.
I say leave them there. Only fools would go to that area at the start of winter. I want some answers from these jokers. These people are scientists???
Hope the shallow water warriors don’t get stuck.
Send Al Bore the bill for this global warming fiasco!