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
So many commenters here gleeful that this ship stuck in ice because they believe it proves global warming is a hoax? The predicted global warming effects are associated with the future… sheeesh. Get it? It doesn’t prove your beliefs are true. Knowing something and believing something are two different things. Your mothers must be so proud back in their trailer-parks.
Oh, darn. I was hoping we would let those blithering global warming hippy types freeze in
the dark.
Turney, the cockney-voiced so called “leader” of the Warmist cruise (so shamefully named the “Spirit of Mawson”), took almost a week to come up with the, “it’s bergy bits of broken ice-sheet wedging us in”!
A quick check on the sea-ice’s salinity can blow that one out of the water.
And why didn’t he know there’s been a 60% increase in SEA-ICE over the last 30 years around Antarctica?
The warmist buffoon has admitted access to the latest weather reports which blew the sea-ice around the ship, he decided to let the day-tripping “scientists” visit Mawson’s Hut even as the captain was extremely anxious about immediately getting out of Commonwealth Bay, he had access to satellite imagery of the ice and yet all to no avail.
Just what were Turney’s priorities?
It seems a Warmist TV extravaganza destined for BBC and ABC consumption is/was being filmed. Mawson’s Hut would be a centre-piece of such a production.
Let’s hope the US Coast Guard can recoup a little of the cost from the parasite.
Here’s an apropos tune…
highflight56433 says:
January 4, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Maybe you were right the first time.
Russian nuke subs do fine in the Indian Ocean & South China Sea in Indian & Chinese service, & their own at Vietnamese bases. OK, maybe subs operate most of the time in cooler depths, but if the US & UK can send nuke ships into the tropics, why not the Russians? Could be the icebreakers are cooled differently, but so far only hearsay.
Let’s hope that eventually this conspiracy-of-silence coverup is expose–in court perhaps. Once exposed, it will be easy to see that this bunch would engage in the same coverup about larger matters, like the return of sea ice, the Pause, etc. IOW, that they’re basically untrustworthy.
4 Jan: CRI English: China Sets up Team to Rescue Stranded Icebreaker
The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced on Saturday the team will map out rescue plans and make “all-out efforts” to coordinate rescue operations, despite there is no immediate danger to personnel aboard Xuelong, which has abundant fuel and food supplies.
The SOA also ordered its marine forecasting department and meteorological center to step up the collection and analysis of meteorological data, so that weather information will be updated and forwarded to Xuelong in a timely manner…
Currently, Xuelong is located at 66.65 degrees south latitude and 144.42 degrees east longitude. It is surrounded by floes up to four meters thick and is about 21 km away from unfrozen waters, according to the SOA.
Qu Tanzhou, director of the State Oceanic Administration’s Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, said the planned expedition by Xuelong is inevitably affected and changes are expected to be made to the vessel’s mission after it gets out of trouble.
“If the ship is stranded for a very long time, which is very rare indeed, then we’ll have to evacuate the people onboard and leave the vessel there,” he said.
http://english.cri.cn/6909/2014/01/04/2361s806546.htm
golly winkies says:
January 4, 2014 at 5:39 pm
Those predictions for 2100 are based upon models that have already been shown hilariously wrong after only eight years (2005 to 2013). They were born wrong, being based upon preposterous assumption s contrary to all actual observations.
What if USCG Polar Star gets stuck? The US has nothing bigger. There may be some great salvage opportunities here in a couple of months.
To Faboutlaws, you say “we” can afford this. If you mean the US, it can afford nothing as it’s at least $17 trillion in debt and counting from doing “good.” How do you know the costs for this rescue including transit would be the same as a normal practice? The US is never going to be “liked” because the people running this country don’t want that to be the narrative. They make more money for themselves and cronies by selling us as bad guys. Ordinary Americans can constantly be subdued and stolen from if we believe we’re hated. US politicians demonize us bitterly from UN podiums and microphones around the world. At best we’re damned with faint praise. Because Americans are so mean and need to get people to like them, US politicians throws billions of tax dollars to the UN and cronies around the world for “global warming” expenses. People like yourself look at one event and say, hey here’s a chance for us to do something good so people will like us. That’s want they want you to think but it’s never going to happen. The US leads the world in CO2 reduction, admits nothing we can do can reduce global CO2 emissions (which are dominated by China), yet the US gov. insists trillions more be taken away from mean Americans every year in perpetuity so we “can be an example” for the world. After many years of observation, no countries are following our “example.” In the case of our CO2 “good guy leadership,” other countries are increasing coal use. Giving away billions of US taxpayer dollars every month to organized crime in Afghanistan and paying $400/gallon of gas makes us a laughing stock. Some of that US taxpayer cash goes to “insurgents” who kill and maim Americans, but we “can’t get out of the contracts” say our lawmakers. The US icebreaker fleet has long needed updating as others have pointed out. Politicians have opted to spend tax dollars elsewhere.
So well said. Thank you. BTW – it’s now on record that we (US of A) has given foreign governments over $7.5Billion over the past 2 years to “fight global warming”. WTF?!?!
I want to smash Turkey’s espresso machine.
Due to faulty science, we are charged on every utility bill, every gallon of gas, every grocery purchase etc etc etc……for so called ‘green energy’. Now we have to PAY TO HAVE THE IDIOTS RESCUED who are faulty scientists and who make a remarkable living from screwing every tax payer in the world………I say we should have just let them find their own way out of the mess that they created! But guess what…….those same scientists are ‘outa there’ and now and enjoying a vacation at our expense….
Dr. Darwin will be happy to rescue them… immediately after he finishing aiding Mr. Soros… who pays CASH…. British Pounds actually….
Recent business news – since fracking, oil and gas more plentiful, and because Arctic will not be navigable as anticipated, Big oil has cooled on Arctic production.
James Strom says:
January 4, 2014 at 5:07 pm
“According to Wikipedia…”
Wikipedia, unsurprisingly, is full of it. The difference in sea temperature between arctic and tropical areas is something like 70-80 degrees F at most. If your nuclear power plant goes from “happy” to “unrequested fission surplus” with that small an inlet coolant temperature change, you haven’t designed a power plant, you’ve designed a very crappy bomb, and not even Russia is that crazy.
milodonharlani says:
January 4, 2014 at 5:49 pm (replying to)
I am very, very skeptical about this claim (of not the Russian nuke ice-breakers not being able to cross the hotter equatorial waters) …. but NOT at all skeptical of a “requirement” that they are “not allowed” go into the “pristine” and “environmentally sacred” Antarctic waters.
See, the RUssian ice breakers have busted their cores before, have a reputation for nuclear-water leaks, reactor leaks, and cross-contamination between the reactor cooling water and the steam system. Remeber, on nuke reactors, the reactor core heats up, the water passing through and around the reactor heats up, that very-high pressure water heats up the lower pressure pure water in the steam generators, and that (now hot water as saturated steam at high temperature and pressure – but lower than the primary reactor water) goes from the steam generators through the throttle valves to the steam turbines and then (at lower pressure and lower temperatures) goes to the ship’s condensors. Then, and only then, can the sea water cool the steam and condense it so it can be pumped back to the steam generators and re-heated.
The sea water must be the final cooling point, but the reactor water is always at a higher temperature and pressure. If that reactor water is contaminated – by leaks through the reactor cladding, additional leaks through the steam generator wall tubes into the steam itself, additional leaks through the turbine-condenser tube walls into the sea water passing by the outside of the tube walls … then, yes, you will get radioactive sea water being released from the ice-breaker.
In “normal” Russian cruising, these leaks do occur – but are obviously unwanted and are fixed as they are found. But, how many Russian surrogate states monitor the water coming out of a Russian submarine heat exchanger when the Russian submarine is shutdown in port? On the other hand, “outlawing” nuclear reactors from the Antarctic “sounds nice” and “environmental” and, in normal , circumstances, doesn’t mean a d*mn thing, since Russian nuclear ice breakers are built and are run to operate in the Russian and Siberian Arctic. they don’t go south.
The SLR-1 was a US Army small reactor intended for Antarctic operations in the mid-60’s. It busted during operation/testing/refueling in Idaho’s NREL, and killed an operator under suspicious repair conditions due to a steam and reactivity expansion. Again, a good “excuse” to remove the other operating reactor from the US station down there.
to think that this was supposedly the hottest year on record, you have to wonder about those oracles of stupidity when they say stuff like that on a yearly basis! hope they don’t get stuck also. antartica is no place for mistakes and bravado! i have always wondered if one day they finally drill down to lake vostok it would mirror what we would find on europa another mystery.
Coast-a Guard Coast-a Guard come and a save-a my (S)hit
Sell the Polar Star to Greenpeace for its full cost and let them do the deed.
give us a year, golly winkies. When will you finally admit that you and them are full of sheit? 2030? 30100? 40000000?
For everyones info go to the antarctic treaty of Dec. 1 1959 and it will give answers before the commentary and why it so.
The idiots still haven’t stopped drinking the Electric Koolaid of the 1972 Environmental Earth Day in Ann Arbor which brought on the EPA
The Madness Become Insanity!
I guess that $400,000 AU-Dollar figure just UPPED to $1.6 Million US-Dollars with the “sky” as the unbounded limit! Ha Ha.
The “margin profits” just keep going up and up and up ….. 😯
Here’s an interesting story:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181470
It covers how the environmental pilgrims pledged to plant 800 trees in New Zealand to offset their carbon emissions from their pilgrimage. The story goes on to say how they will now have to plant 5,000 trees to cover the carbon emitted for their rescue.
If eco-activists keep up with all these pledges, before you know it, they’ll have to dig up all the cities and cover the whole of New Zealand in trees.
Thanks to JerryL for his contribution to reality. I checked his facts and confirmed:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140103-antarctica-ship-icebreakers-science-ice-trapped/
Whether you unequivocally agree with ex-Admiral Garrett’s assessment or not, this is a must-read for those who want to opine from a position of knowledgeability.
Robert Muir says: January 4, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Russian Ice Breaker is much bigger than the USCG’s.Plus why the hell do we have to pay for this??
The Russian breakers cannot cool their reactors in tropical waters, they cannot make the trip from Arctic to Antarctic. The Russian ships while larger can only break ice up to 16 ft, the Polar Sea can break up to 21 ft.