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
I don’t know why you are all so unsympathetic. It was an easy mistake to make. 🙂
http://www.winstoneball.plus.com/IMAGES/No%20Ice.jpg
Well, Mr. Harlani, welcome back, you’ve been missed. Glad to see that you are okay. Hope all is well. Janice
Is there any chance that we could demand that the cost of sending the Polar Star down there be taken out of the EPA’s budget? If the EPA’s shenanigans in support of the CAGW meme are going to cost us all money in “skyrocketing” utility bills, well, shouldn’t any and all (expletive deleted) expeditions in support of that meme cost the EPA money. A few layoffs should pay for it. What about the universities? A few layoffs there too, could help pick up the tab. And, as far as offsetting the fuel consumption (25,000 hp turbines slurp up the stuff), and thus carbon ‘pollution’ of the Polar Star, well, we could withhold a likewise quantity of fuel from Air Force 1.
The Polar Star was already enroute to the Ross Sea for “Operation Deepfreeze”., the annual resupply of McMuardo base. The ship had just pulled into Sydney for a 4 day layover which ended up as 1 day. The US Coast Guard only has 2 icebreakers capable of breaking polar ice. The Polar Star and USCCG Healy which is in Seattle after [spending] most of the Summer & Fall in the Arctic.
The US [government] needs more Arctic icebreakers as they only have 2 right now and the Polar Star just came out of the yards after being rebuilt.
Perhaps Mr Putin could swim over and free the ship? Sacasm vs reality…..it takes real strength and conviction to move humanity forward in a positive manner…not showmanship……too much on our continent too!!
Polar Star was on her way past Commonwealth Bay anyway, so the cost is a tiny part of her months long mission.
A crew of 140 !? That’s going to run the rescue bill up a bit.
Prof Turkey’s going to need to sell a lot of activated carbon granules and ‘bio-oil’ to pay this one.
Sadly he’s just gone on record as saying it’s not climate change. He should have said it was and put in a claim for UN Green Fund payola.
Milodonharlani @ur momisugly 1:33 pm, with increased Antarctic tourism, let the companies doing the touring pay for it.
Y’all be careful now. Those global warming fellas have proven to be pretty bad luck.
M.Courtney @ur momisugly 1.02. The story was on the blog, ” Not a Lot of People know About That” posted today. A follower of the blog sent in the original story which made the MSM plus supporting data.
They set out to save the planet- clearly, the planet had other ideas. Now this ship of dimwits and tourists needs rescued twice.
Leave them there till the ice melts this summer!
great picture but your link is broken — links with imbedded spaces do not fare well in posts the parser thinks the end of the link is the imbedded space.
Link should be : “http://www.winstoneball.plus.com/IMAGES/No%20Ice.jpg”
[Changed. Mod]
So I read through the comments and some I had to laugh at…Polar Class Icebreakers are armed with .50 caliber machine guns, M-16s, .40 caliber Sig Sauer Pistols and Remington 870 Shotguns. The National Science Foundation funds the Antarctic research trips called Deepfreeze. The Coast Guard currently has 3 Polar Icebreakers in inventory – POLAR STAR, POLAR SEA and HEALY. POLAR STAR and POLAR SEA are considered heavy icebreakers and are the only US Icebreakers capable of breaking Antarctic Ice. HEALY is a medium icebreaker and is intended for service in the Arctic. At once point in the Coast Guard’s history, the icebreakers in service were GLACIER, BURTON ISLAND, EDISTO, SOUTHWIND, WESTWIND, EASTWIND, NORTHWIND, all of these have been decomissioned, All of these icebreakers used to belong to the US Navy and were heavily armed until transferred to the US Coast Guard because the mission for these ships changed. POLAR SEA is currently in caretaker status and not in service. Over the last 3 years the Coast Guard has spent in excess of $90 million to get POLAR STAR operational because prior to that, it had been in caretaker status since 2006. It’s last Antarctic trip was a Search and Rescue to break a Russian Icebreaker out of an ice floe because of a mechanical failure. POLAR STAR and POLAR SEA are the world’s most powerful NON-NUCLEAR icebreakers. The Russians have nuclear icebreakers that are not permitted in the Antarctic due to International agreements…. I used to be stationed on POLAR STAR – during my Coast Guard career
So the world comes to an end every time a field of ice shows a crack in it. But ships can ram away with impunity amid the deafening silence from the climate science community. Got it.
I have a name for any unseasonably cold temps: Algre (pron: AL-grr). It is in recognition to Al Gore and the amazing and insightful work he has done helping us understand the Truth of Global Warming. “An Inconvenient Truth” has helped us understand the truth about climate and it’s impact. This is that scumbag whorez like Al Gore will lie about the climate and do anything possible to impact our pocketbooks for their own benefit. Thanks for the insight, Al. I hope you enjoy the Algre we’re having!
Guess who is going to get stuck next?….Polar Star and the US taxpayer….
The activists went on their true believer mystical pilgrimage to Antarctica and the crews and vessels keep increasing of those that are paying the price for that belief system.
Combine all the expenses and place a lien on all the activists and their sponsors.
Don apparently there still a LOT of tools left in the toolbox. Boatloads!
For our liberal and progressive American correspondents demanding the US build (more) icebreakers; if it’s such a good idea then you pony up (ah, wonderful mixed metaphor – all hat and no pony) the bucks. It is not government’s place to compete with private investments nor support them – that is what has given US a broken narrowly robust economy now broken.
N. N. Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
Hey, the US started on the rescue at the end of December:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/wuwt-and-weatherbell-help-kusi-tv-with-a-weather-forecasting-request-from-ice-trapped-ship-in-antarctica-akademik-shokalskiy/
I don’t think Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo got enough news credit for this remarkable assistance provided to the Akademik Shokalskiy by them. To me, this is a much bigger story than it got credit for (a few minutes on KUSI TV). Here we have the evil arch-enemy of the of poor(?) criticized AGW scientists jumping into the breach when the ship called for help with weather forecasting in the vicinity of their ship. Someone with good media connections should get this story out now while the fiasco is still unfolding.
@Weeone – It is summer where they are. But those global warming idiots should be charged for their rescue.
The chinese ice breaker XL was not big enough, so they’ve now called on the american ship the XXL 😉
From the Seattle Times today:
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/01/seattle-based-icebreaker-heads-to-the-rescue-in-antarctic/?syndication=rss
Interesting tidbits of info:
A Chinese reporter aboard the Xue Long said late Saturday that an iceberg had appeared overnight and blocked the ship’s return route, but that the ship would again try to find a way out as early as Monday, according to The Associated Press.
The reporter, Zhang Jiansong, said the 101 crew members on board were safe and had plenty of supplies.
Now the news media is claiming it’s not ice causing the problem, but unstable water caused by global warming.