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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I knew it was to good to be true: that the ChiComs were going to foot the bill for rescuing these global warming idiots aboard this chartered ship. Yep, now the US taxpayer is going to get to foot the bill
This has been a major embarrassment for the climate cultists. And 2014 was supposed to be Obama’s big year for climate decrees. They have to get those ships out and stop the bleeding. I’m guessing that they will also “confirm” that the ice that trapped the ships was caused by global warming.
Note that the ice measurement
exceeds the US ship’s thickness rating.
I’m fine with Polar Star freeing the trapped ships. It was headed there anyway, and it’s one of those international-y neighborish things we tend to do.
If the Chris(tmas) Turkey Cult™ were still there, I’d say let ’em sit until the primary resupply mission is done.
_Jim says:
January 4, 2014 at 1:06 pm
(A polar-class ice breaker doing intercept runs or picket duty along the coast? …)
+++++++
With NASA’s aim now being to help the Muslims feel proud of themselves and Obama feting the MB for their contribution to freedom & progress, we expect EXACTLY that.
Yet another article on this that fails to mention that the mission was Global Warming! As for GLobal Warming “finally costing US taxpayers (per a comment), we have given over $7.5 BILLION to foreign governments to “fight global warming”!!! And this is just the start: Sec St Kerry is putting together a fund of $100 billion for other countries to tap into!!!
http://www.earthweek.com/2010/ew100305/ew100305c.html
Aw yes summertime in Antarctica.
If I may re-post a comment from earlier thread.
This whole incident spotlights the need for the U.S. to build more polar-class icebreakers. Whether for research, supply, or national security interests, or merely to conduct search and rescue operations, it would seem there is a need for more of these ships.
Stranded Vessel in Antarctica Illustrates Need for New U.S. Icebreaker Policy
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/12/31/stranded-vessel-antarctica-illustrates-need-new-u-s-icebreaker-policy/
The author, Brian Slattery, a foreign policy research assistant, has been calling for a strengthened U.S. coast guard presence in the arctic in order to “catch up with the other Arctic nations and field a presence that can legitimately protect U.S. sovereignty in the region.”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/strengthen-the-us-coast-guard-in-the-arctic
The USCGC Polar Star and its twin the Polar Sea are ostensibly “able to break through ice up to 21 feet (6 m) thick and steam continuously through 6 feet (1.8 m) of ice at 3 knots (6 km/h),” (Wikipedia). It’s about 400 feet long and 80 feet wide, and it is able to accommodate two helicopters. These two ships are among the largest of U.S. coast guard ships, and along with a smaller ship, “The Healy”, apparently comprise the entire fleet of polar-capable U.S. icebreakers. The two former ships were built in the ’70′s, and are nearing the end of their natural service lives.
The distinction in vessel construction, and role of sovereign naval powers in the polar regions is certainly one of the more fascinating aspects of this story. Even though chances of armed conflict in the polar regions seems unlikely, it would be interesting to know more about the role these interesting ships play in maintaining national security and a balance of powers in these areas.
Interesting, too, the U.S. senators urging new shipbuilding.
In November 2013 four Senators proposed an amendment to the 2014 Defense Appropriations Act authorizing the construction of four new Polar class vessels, at a cost of $850 million each.[8][9][10] The four Senators sponsoring the amendment were Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, from Washington, and Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski, from Alaska. According to the Seattle Times the chances that the amendment will survive into the bill, as passed, are slim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar-class_icebreaker
on review, the Coast Guard ship can handle that thickness. So much for doing math in my head.
Russian Ice Breaker is much bigger than the USCG’s.Plus why the hell do we have to pay for this??
The idiots who started this trouble, were indeed on a mission, to show the devastation caused by….you guessed it, global warming. Instead, they found out something much more interesting, and relevant to our society. Global warming has NOT destroyed the ice at the poles, and CO2, has not had the effect on climate, that they thought it would. There…..the truth is out now. What on earth will they come out with, to keep this little tidbit of information, from becoming known worldwide? Those eco-nuts won’t give up easily. Agenda 21 is driving them on.
A bunch of global warming loonies who went to see the “melting” ice, against all rationality (oh, I forgot, the media’s hiding the inconvenient facts of this voyage) trapped in their own stupidity. I resent having to pay for their rescue. Send the bill to AlGore!
So maybe we could charge the Chinese about 30 Trillion to free their Ice Breaker Boat,
I was in Operation Deep Freeze in the early 60’s.My Ice breaker (USCGC Eastwind) was half the size and NEVER got stuck in 20 years of operating in the Antarctic..
M Courtney says:
January 4, 2014 at 1:02 pm
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-antarctic-magazine/2006-2010/issue-18-2010/glaciology/mertz-glacier-tongue-unhinged-by-giant-iceberg
Antarctica is not melting. The EAIS quit retreating over 3000 years ago.
The highest T ever recorded in Antarctica was in 1974. Most of the continent never gets above freezing, but the Peninsula has reached 59 F in the past.
Some times it is just too easy. I particularly liked the comment by Warren Dexter, who pondered about the AGW people not being able to predict ice that exists now. And , to Clive – Thank You Thank You Thank You. Lastly, a hat tip to someone on another article comment thread who introduced (at least to me) the term – applicable to the media, of whom, 98% omitted the Global Warming Cult aspect of this disaster – PRESSTITUTES. Gotta love.
This entire episode stinks. How hard is it to get an up-to-date satellite photo showing ICE where they were intending to go to point out there was no ice???How hard is it (just go out on the web and search?) to find the stills and movie footage of the original expedition showing NO ICE?
Everyone involved in setting this trip up should be held personally responsible for its cost and the cost of their rescue. Any “academic” involved should lose their job. AND they should be required to make an educational video to illustrate their cynical, dishonest bastardization of science.
Canada at one time had a plan to build serious icebreakers, but somehow became convinced that the Arctic would be largely ice free in a few decades, and so ordered ‘slush breakers’ instead.
We need an elaborate Global Warming Interview of Ron Burgundy helicoptering in to interview the global warming scientists on deck of their ice bound ship which is surrounded by other ice bound rescue ships.
THE ONLY PERSON MISSING FROM THIS HOT DOG GLOBAL WARMING MISSION IS AL GORE.
Yay!!!! The US is actually doing something good for our friends and allies. This is what we should be doing…not tapping Merkel’s cell, or sending drones out to kill innocents or taking out leaders of crappy countries so we can run our weapons through their cities.
Yay for the Coast Guard!!!
What a tremendous waste all around. The American taxpayer gets screwwwwed both for the rescue cost and for the global warming that these progressive “scientists” are preaching. The irony of this situation is wonderful.
There does not seem to be a lot of tools left in the tool box. As mentioned on WUWT in recent weeks, U.S. ice breaking capability is old, and limited in numbers. The only serviceable polar capable icebreaker, USCGC Polar Star, is fresh off a three year overhaul to extend it’s useful life for perhaps ten years. It’s sister ship, the decommissioned USCGC Polar Sea, was recently saved from scrapping, but would need an even more extensive overhaul than Polar Star completed to return to service. Recent proposals to fund and build three new polar capable icebreakers for the USCG are ten years too late.
So, now it is the U.S. researchers turn to endure delays in resupply and personnel rotation that will play havoc with their schedules. Hopefully, that is all they contend with, just a delay, and the coasties make quick work of this. My wife has been very patient (and not very interested) these past ten days as I moved our Cram’s world globe out of the corner and flipped it upside down to track this circus unfolding in Antarctica. (Furniture location is her purview, not mine.) After the evacuation of the AS, I mentioned that the XL was itself stuck, also. Her reply, “This is not going to end well.”
With increased Antarctic tourism, maybe an international icebreaker patrol should be mounted, financed with insurance funds. Chile, Argentina, the UK (Falklands & S. Georgia), South Africa, Australia & New Zealand might vie for basing contracts. Global cooling is underway, after all.
Go, Coasties!
(Thanks, Uncle Larry and cousin Ted!)
Speaking for this American taxpayer: We are so glad to be able to go to the rescue of our fellow human beings that we do not count the cost. It’s just part of being a good neighbor.
As for those whose recklessness or, at least, negligence, caused this fiasco, however…. watch out. America has more lawyers per capita than anywhere else in the world… . And a lot of them are currently very hungry for work. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaa!