The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy Integrated Program Office announced Dec. 19 the approval to start construction of the nation’s first polar security cutter in more than 50 years. This icebreaker, being built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss, will enhance the United States’ ability to operate in the challenging Arctic and Antarctic regions, which are increasingly vital to national security and scientific exploration.
The approval incorporates eight prototype fabrication assessment units, part of the program’s phased approach. These units, either underway or planned, use a “crawl-walk-run” strategy as the shipbuilder refines techniques and gets the workforce skills up to speed before transitioning to full-blown production.
The icebreaker program is, however, behind schedule. It was supposed to have delivered the icebreaker this year, but now it may not be done until 2029. the delays include the fact that Halter Marine, which won the contract out of the five companies that bid on it, was bought this year by Bollinger.
The Polar Security Cutter class addresses the aging state of the U.S. Coast Guard’s operational polar icebreaking fleet, which is down to just one heavy icebreaker, the 399-foot Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, commissioned in 1976, and one medium icebreaker, the 420-foot Coast Guard Cutter Healy, commissioned in 1999.
To supplement the two, the Coast Guard recently acquired a commercially available polar icebreaker, M/V Aiviq, a 360-foot U.S.-built polar class 3-equivalent icebreaker, to bolster presence and mission capacity in the Arctic.
Since the Northern Sea Passage will see heavier traffic, we should have a minimum of 4-5 Ice Breakers. Especially, once folks figure out that the only hope for producing AKLNG, the pipeline to Southcentral is known to be uneconomical, and constructing the LNG infrastructure on the Slope is the only chance at developing this potential industry. Existing Ice Breaker Assets would help make this very attractive, shipping AKLNG directly from the Slope to market destinations, just like the Ruskies do.
Thank You Honorable Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Why? Juno is irrelevant. Anchorage is very obviously the best choice for ports, or maybe Cold Bay or Kodiak, but Juno?
Repurposing and reestablishing Port Facility @ Adak, combining it with a US Navy Base, would be the most practical location. Unfortunately, practicality gets thrown aside for narcissistic political points – optics.
Kodiak is the place and even it is awfully far from the polar waters. But it already has a lot of the infra structure. Stationing in Juneau seems totally foolish and more to do with politics than common sense.
Was suppposed to delivered this year – a floating functioning ship! But no!! Far too many cooks stirring that soup from politicians in Congress to far too many desk sailors trying to fool with the latest technoloy – resulting in total paralysis and NO progress. We need 3-4 more ice breakers. Get a flippin ship built. Trump – clean out the upper level deadwood in the military and get some DOers in there – keep the politicians out of it too.
A previous article said the boat would be stationed at Juneau. Yep, that makes a lot of sense – home port as far from the Arctic Ocean as you can get.
Well if you are serious about a place to keep the ice breaker – Nome
You can always build facilities and i believe there is port facilities, they will have to be upgraded and build infrastructure for support.
But, what could you lose.