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
GOD is showing us who is STILL boss!
I just hope we don’t get stuck….we are not overly supplied with ice breakers.
golly winkies says:
January 4, 2014 at 5:39 pm
” … it proves global warming is a hoax? ”
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you probably meant to say: ” … proves catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is a hoax? ”
It is best to get your facts straight.
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” Knowing something and believing something are two different things. ”
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I believe that most readers here appreciate the distinction. Would you care to explain how you “know” that the CAGW theory is correct? If you need assistance in framing your argument, I would be more than willing to help.
Mr Gore is troubled about the global warming effects in the Antarctic and the way people tweet this Vessel rescue, he now have realized that it was a bad idea from his part to invent Internet.
Will you liberal fascists PLEASE turn up the global warming?
That coast guard ice breaker emits huge amounts of CO2 which will cause even more sea ice, potentially endanger the entire planet. We should only allow wind-powered or solar powered rescue vehicles to save these scientists… I know Chris Turney would agree with me on this point, because like me, he wants to save the planet too. . And if these renewable energy vessels should fail in their mission, then remember the words of Spock who said “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.
It is worth revisiting the underlying political agenda behind “climate change” science revisiting the Stockholm Conference on the Environmental Crisis. Conference preparatory meeting minutes reveal they needed a vehicle (climate change chosen) to get people to accept global governance and the gradual erosion of national sovereignties and private property rights (which belongs to the “common humanity”).
From the ITEST April 14-16 1972 Conference on the Environmental Crisis meeting
minutes: “What kind of vehicle will get the world community along the road that we’ll have to travel?…Sometime something is going to happen that is truly irretrievable, but we have not yet come to this…Stockholm is looking to world-wide situations and there is no particular environmental…issue that needs an immediate global response…Earth Watch, as a global effort at environmental cooperation, should obviously be directed to a global problem. The problem priority for Earth Watch should involve that global problem which may most easily become irreversible. We
suggest the seas and oceans represent a prime global concern.”
The warming seas and the oceans is the basis for the climate change science. In a nutshell: Earth Watch was directed to manufacture a crisis because “in every revolution there is an idea and ideal”.
The Weather is like betting on Sports ??? Take all of the statistic !! And it tells you
What you “” DID “” ,,,, but not what you are going to “” DO “”……duh.
Its SUMMER in Antarctica! What’s it going to be like in the WINTER? The Global Warming nut cases are still explaining why this is global warming…..JEEZ!
Polar Star should stop about a meter or so away from the fools on the Global Warming mission and make them admit they’ve been wrong all along before proceeding to rescue them. And record the whole thing for YouTube and Fox News.
How little we know . . . what great assumptions we make!
God will not be mocked. . .and He does have a sense of humor.
“You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”” There in Numbers 11.
A couple of things: 1) Quit the whining, 2) Conclusions based on false premises are dangerous.
Served on the Polar Sea, deep freeze 80, good to see the Polar Star up and running again, would not have been available last year as NSF took over ice breaking duties from USCGC and did not want to maintain these ships. The newest US ice breaker USCGC Healey is only a medium level and not able to do the McMurdo break in which left us renting from other countries for years. Time to get the Polar Sea running again and some new ships built.
If I remember correctly the Sea class ice breakers carry about 3.5 million gallons of fuel and will need to refuel after the Mcmurdo break-in to get back to Seattle. Gonna need to turn on the turbines for 75000 hp and do some ice breaking.
Global warming scientists and political activists get their ships stuck in “disappearing” ice. Meanwhile taxpayers’ money are burning up toward “Global Warming” funds and projects. . .how much of a carbon footprint in our pocketbooks does that make?
The problem with Socialists is that they use up the money we taxpayers foot the bill willing and with a naive brain. While are ill-informed people willing to be tricked with lies?
as a former member of the COAST GUARD to the crew of the USCGC POLAR STAR: MERRY CHRISTMAS from the ship to the crew now all hands will turn to: turn to, turn to, turn to on ships work!
Richard Newquist . . . I am sure you have noticed that practically in all of the “media” remarks or reporting of this incident, the fact that it is SUMMER there has basically NOT been mentioned AT ALL. Another example of how this whole thing is operated to yield for everyone either incorrect information . . . or data that is incomplete.
Good point. Still, why so much ice in summer?
Someone left the Air Conditioning Unit on ??????
The church of global warming should look for a new scam, the people of the U.S. will never allow their taxes to be raised over this hoax, not after all the proven fraud and unending parade of foibles that have debunked the warmists every doctrine.
Hmmm … where does it mention that? A not unreasonable place to start for what is prohibited is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
Under Article 1, it does not preclude the use of ship like the Polar Star:
Article 1 – The area to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose
Will we see a movie of this “rescue” like the one where the lady scientist was flown out by a Canadian “Otter” because the U.S. didn’t have a plane that could land there in the winter. At the end of the movie, there was a shot of the pilot of the “U.S. plane” a big heavy lift cargo plane, waving out the cockpit window over the name “The United States of America” and we know that plane never was anywhere near that South Pole. We’ll wait for the movie to see how this plays out.
USA fails to report why the Global-warming eco-nuts were at the Antarctic! New Zealand (in their eco delusion) needs to plan 5,000 trees for the rescue ship! Now (thanks to the eco-nut scientists) even more carbon offsets are needed in the delusional liberal minds… if they still have any left….
I say leave ALL the [snip] there and let al gore rescue them
Polar Class Ice Breakers are very capable icebreakers. Very powerful too. They have both diesel electric and gas turbine propulsion. Add to that variable pitch propellers and they car really break some ice!. On gas turbine mode they hardly need sea-water suction for cooling which is what limits the Russian nuke breakers. (I was stationed on the Polar Sea in the ’80s)
ranch111 says:
January 5, 2014 at 5:14 pm
Good point. Still, why so much ice in summer?
???? “ranch”
Why is the sun an average of 93 million miles away from the sun?
Why does it take 365 days and 6 hours exact to go exactly around the sun once?
Why are we tilted with respect to the plane of rotation around the sun at 23.44 degrees?
Why do some folks get to sleep in and play on the computer, while others have to get up early and go to work?
Why does most everyone rely on gurgle, ehrrr, google?
Try doing some thinking. Come up with your own meaningful and true conclusions.
I think that some of the answers could be cleared with a “smart phone” though. : 0
I have no problem with the US Coast Guard going to the rescue. However, the cost of the use of American assets should first be discussed and agreed upon. Now I guess our free lunch program is really global. Can’t we just mind our own business.
Why not just let the ship stay where it is until global warming melts all the ice around it?
It’s high summer in the Southern Hemisphere and these global warming True Believer pseudo-scientists decided to go on an exhibition to “prove” the blatant multinational criminal hoax of global warming (oops! “climate change”) — and they end up getting stuck in the ice. And from there it’s a real mess and rescuers are now in a position of danger because of this idiotic expedition. Guess the True Believer need to go back to photo-manipulation to “prove” the sky is falling.
Let them freeze to death. Idiots.