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
Related:
The ‘Clitanic’ Hot Sheet – News from the #SpiritofMawson fiasco
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Having been to Antarctica in 1970 aboard the USCGC Burton Island, We along with the Ice Breaker Edisto broke about 20 miles of ice to supply McMurdo Station. I can be dangerous the Edisto suspended breaking after damage to her rudder needed to return to new Zealand for repairs. The Burton Island successfully completed her mission even loosing a propeller(metal fatigue of 23 inch propeller shaft). At one time the Coast Guard had 4 Island Class and 4 Wind Class Icebreakers along with the Glacier for Northern and Southern icebreaking missions. One hell of a mission to place on such a small contingent of our Military. I think it is about time that an investment in new Icebreakers not another Aircraft Carrier. Resent news regarding the areas of the North Pole region for area claims by other countries India, Russia, China etc. As was mentioned in earlier messages “rescue idiots and SAVING LIVES since 1790”
So who is going to try to get the American icebreaker unstuck in a few weeks? Seems like the world may soon be running out of icebreakers.
Stan says:
January 5, 2014 at 7:56 am
“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???”
Stan is probably gone from this thread, but since it’s the start of summer down there, I assume he thought this was in the arctic or he believes that the whole world is in winter now. This is the problem when folks don’t look at the basic facts. Stan is probably a good guy, but failed to “research” some of the basic facts of this story.
Stan, it’s summer down there…
I believe vessels in the Antartic region cannot be heavily armed with deck guns,or other heavy armaments, because of international treaties.
“Polar Star now slowed down. Speed 13.2 knots/ at 186 degrees. About 1800 NM to go.”
That appears to be stale data. The AIS data is four hours old
“Polar Star now slowed down. Speed 13.2 knots/ at 186 degrees. About 1800 NM to go.”
That appears to be stale data. The AIS data is four hours old
“Doug Huffman says:
January 5, 2014 at 6:17 am
…
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.”
I don’t recall such limitations on either S1C or S5W submarine reactor plants (1960s era). In fact during the new construction testing phase we actually performed tests slamming specially installed quick acting steam dump valves open and closed while the plant was at 100% power to ensure the plant as built would exhibit the appropriate transient response. If there had been any limits theoretical or actual I am certain that Naval Reactors and Admiral Rickover would have insisted that all plant operators knew of them and we would have been tested upon them. Low Pressurizer pressure or water levels were never an issue. Occasionally, if you for some reason screwed up during pre-start up testing you might have a concern about Pressurizer water level being too high but never too low.
Rickover is gone and perhaps the newer plants are different.
52 elitists travel thousands of miles on a privately chartered cruiseship despite their alleged concern for the environment. Hypocrisy does not suffice to describe the largess of this crew and the Al Gores of the movement- chartered jets and ships, enormous mansions.
Someone dared suggest that planting a few thousand trees would take care of the carbon footprint.
Imagine if a non-scientist or non-elitist were found wasting so much energy and destroying thousands of miles of the fragile frozen ecostructure!
What is little barry hussein soetoro’s carbon footprint? SInce the left wing, environmental wackos who set out to prove that the well known fraud and hoax known as “Global Warming’ was the cause of ice caps melting (which, of course, they aren’t), how much of the fossil fueled ships and aircraft have to be deployed to save these imbeciles? They should just let them sail back by themselves on the warm waters created in their Marxist imaginations.
This event should at least receive honorable mention in the 2014 Darwin Awards.
In a couple weeks the Government will be crying to raise the debt again. Antarctica is a long way from are coast, we can’t afford to send are “Coast Guard” but since this is a global warming fiasco how can we miss the opportunity and not afford to air drop in Al Gore and see if he can remedy the problem with his hot air.
Screw that! Why do I have to pay for these idiots stupidity? The last time I checked a map Antarctica was no where near U.S. waters. So what the hell are we doing there? Oh, yeah, political points with the Gore crowd.
The Polar Star was en route for a reapply mission. Hope that they are able to save lives. Kind of a weird coincidence that it was nearly to Sydney when it was needed. Can’t believe that nearly every article (97%) on this story fails to mention that this was a Global Warming junket – pathetic.
abra cadabra ala kazaam, global warming is such a scam
If these ‘global warming scientists’ really believe the crap they are spewing, they should wait until the ice melts instead of destroying the planet with additional CO2 from the rescue ships to save their worthless sack-o-shit asses. This shows me that they really have any conviction to their beliefs. hahaha
I suggest the following as a name for this escapade:
Mawson’s Revenge
(Apologies to Montezuma.)
I would love to see the people who set off this Chinese fire drill billed for the costs incurred, but I doubt it will happen.
A note for J Welk. The US Coast Guard IS in fact a military service. It is presently under the DHS rather than the DOD, but there is nothing that says all military services are under DOD. In fact there is this:
Title 14 of the United States Code:
The Coast Guard as established January 28, 1915, shall be a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times. The Coast Guard shall be a service in the Department of Homeland Security, except when operating as a service in the Navy.
And now they have to “plant thousands of trees to offset the carbon footprint” of this silly debacle, says the fanatical twerps. These warming people are like a bunch of school kids playing some sort of goofy game. Leave them on the frozen ships … we could use less of these idiots.
Rather than spend a fortune in “rescuing them, we should have set uyp a schedule to make one drop of food and other supplies every six months or so to the global warmist idiots on the first ship and left them there – After all, the “proven” science of AGW/CC indicates that all the ice will soon melt leaving them free to sail home…
…or not :o)
I cannot understand this, why do they not use sailing ships? Surely wind-powered ships are far superior to these puny diesel-powered vessels, and would slice through this ice like butter – with no emissions.
/sarc
so much for the global warming cruise through the melted ICE pack that the Russian expedition was sold to scientist and tourist. NOT a word of this failure from the MSM believers
Send the bill to Oz. Or let ’em walk home….
What’s all the talk about U.S. Coast Guard ice breakers? Why do we have any? Whe the hell needs to go to the South Pole for any real reason? Forget it. One more waste of taxpayers’ money.
This is absurd. The Aussies pay these idiotic and crooked climate change professors at the Univ of New South Wales – Wallby campus. Fire these idiots, cut any climate change study BS and buy a proper icebreaker. Send the bill for this rescue to the idiots on the Ship of Fools that started this fiasco.
This will be a SERIOUS waste of taxpayer money. The tourists / political activists on the stuck boat SHOULD have to fund the entire rescue effort. It could be that the world would be better off on the whole if there were NO “rescue effort” for the highly opinionated fools. Recall that the “original expedition” that took that route was stranded for TWO YEARS… lived on penguins. These whimps are just going to run out of movies and miss some parties.
I just spoke with Chuck Norris. He will be there tomorrow with an ice pick and a shovel. Expect all the ships to be free in 2-3 hours.