by hausen » October 6, 2021, 11:13 am
Portdrydock wrote:I don’t understand the argument for more ice breaking capacity on the Great Lakes (another Mackinac) when the Coast Guard plan is not to replace the Alder in Duluth until the spring of 2022. To me, it makes the argument for another Mackinac hollow.
Alder was designed and built primarily as a buoy tender. She's a light icebreaker at best, able to handle flat, relatively thin ice that forms in shallow, protected bodies of water like the Duluth-Superior harbor. What the Lakes shipping industry is advocating for is something that can handle thick, piled-up, wind-rowed brash ice which forms in places like Whitefish Bay, the St. Marys and St. Clair Rivers, and offshore of port entrances. That ice is not something
Alder,
Hollyhock et. al have ever been able to handle, but it is the type of ice that causes serious bottlenecks during early-season operations, and it's what the
Mackinaws and the
Bay-class icebreaking 'tugs' are supposed to be able to take shots at. Given that there's only one
Mackinaw-class ship currently in service on the U.S. side, and that the
Bay class ships are getting up there in years, it makes sense that interested parties have identified a need for additional icebreaking capability.
It would be interesting to see whether the Coast Guard could manage to two-birds-one-stone the situation and design a ship capable of being available for heavy icebreaking duty on the Lakes from December to April and also being at least somewhat helpful to the USCG for having a presence in the Arctic from July - October. Would have to have a relatively narrow beam to transit the Seaway & Welland locks, but perhaps she could operate as an 'oblique' icebreaker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_icebreaker
[quote="Portdrydock"]I don’t understand the argument for more ice breaking capacity on the Great Lakes (another Mackinac) when the Coast Guard plan is not to replace the Alder in Duluth until the spring of 2022. To me, it makes the argument for another Mackinac hollow.[/quote]
[i]Alder[/i] was designed and built primarily as a buoy tender. She's a light icebreaker at best, able to handle flat, relatively thin ice that forms in shallow, protected bodies of water like the Duluth-Superior harbor. What the Lakes shipping industry is advocating for is something that can handle thick, piled-up, wind-rowed brash ice which forms in places like Whitefish Bay, the St. Marys and St. Clair Rivers, and offshore of port entrances. That ice is not something [i]Alder[/i], [i]Hollyhock[/i] et. al have ever been able to handle, but it is the type of ice that causes serious bottlenecks during early-season operations, and it's what the [i]Mackinaws[/i] and the [i]Bay[/i]-class icebreaking 'tugs' are supposed to be able to take shots at. Given that there's only one [i]Mackinaw[/i]-class ship currently in service on the U.S. side, and that the [i]Bay[/i] class ships are getting up there in years, it makes sense that interested parties have identified a need for additional icebreaking capability.
It would be interesting to see whether the Coast Guard could manage to two-birds-one-stone the situation and design a ship capable of being available for heavy icebreaking duty on the Lakes from December to April and also being at least somewhat helpful to the USCG for having a presence in the Arctic from July - October. Would have to have a relatively narrow beam to transit the Seaway & Welland locks, but perhaps she could operate as an 'oblique' icebreaker: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_icebreaker[/url]