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USCG icebreaker Polar Sea breaks down
The U.S. Coast Guard has announced that its heavy-duty icebreaker Polar Sea has had to go out of service until at least January 2011 because of excessive wear in 33 engine cylinder assemblies. The Polar Sea had been scheduled to provide Arctic support, including community outreach activities for rural Alaskans and participation in oil spill recovery exercises.
And the icebreaker was to have participated in the USCG Arctic Crossroads 2010 exercise in August.
“It is disappointing the Polar Sea will be unable to support Coast Guard Arctic tasking this summer,” said Rear Adm. Christopher Colvin, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District. “Arctic Crossroads is an important coast-guard operation demonstrating the presence and enforcement of sovereign rights in the U.S. Arctic maritime. Additionally Polar Sea was to provide critical search and rescue standby during a period of increased human activity in the U.S. Coast Guard’s search and rescue coordination area of the Arctic Ocean.”
Polar Star being reactivated The coast guard’s other large icebreaker, the Polar Star, is in the process of being reactivated for service and will not be back in operation until 2013. And although the coast guard’s third icebreaker, the Healy, remains in operation, supporting Arctic scientific research, that icebreaker has less icebreaking capability than the two heavy-duty vessels.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski responded to the Polar Sea situation by restating her support for a ramped up U.S. icebreaker program.
“On a national level this eliminates the nation’s only heavy icebreaking capability and seriously imperils our ability to respond to emergencies in ice-covered and ice-diminished waters. This could clearly impact our ability to preserve and protect U.S. interests in the Arctic,” Murkowski said. “… The loss of the Polar Sea is all the more reason for congress and the administration to refocus on the deteriorating state of the nation’s icebreaker fleet.”
—Alan Bailey
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