Icebreakers

[Guest]

Algowood had that set up thought process was she could run Marquette to the Soo all winter, think the Scotland built Salty Lakers had reinforced ice class bows

[Denny]

That is I believe is what Collingwood Shipyards did with a few of their built ships in the 1970s correct? I believe some were built with a type of bow for ice-breaking and not sure if it was a V-shape as I think that is the term they gave and used for it. I’m just surprised you don’t see that type of set up on the newer Canadian Lakers as I would think that it would help them in both the Winter and Spring in ice. Just my thoughts.

[Rob]

The thing with Coast Guard icebreakers is they have full time work. When not icebreaking they work Aids to Navigation, are available for search and rescue, work as platforms for large marine events, etc.. Private icebreakers would only have 3-4 months work, not a good schedule for keeping a reliable crew or making a profit.

Of course. So why isn't some sort of icebreaking ability, such as reinforced spoon shaped bows, built into ships in order to avoid getting stuck as much as possible?

[BMCS]

The thing with Coast Guard icebreakers is they have full time work. When not icebreaking they work Aids to Navigation, are available for search and rescue, work as platforms for large marine events, etc.. Private icebreakers would only have 3-4 months work, not a good schedule for keeping a reliable crew or making a profit.

[Guest]

The carferries on Lake Michigan that operated over the Winter often needed icebreaker assistance when trying to enter ports on the Michigan side of the lake because the prevailing westerly winds would pile ice into pressure ridges outside harbours. Of course that didn't happen every year.

As an example, during January 1977, the City of Milwaukee was trapped in heavy ice outside Muskegon for three days until the Westwind could free her. Another ferry, Ann Arbor's Viking was also trapped by the ice on Lake Michigan.

The railroads operated these carferry services across Lake Michigan at the time because it was considered an essential service by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) eventhough the railroads were desperate to abandon the service - which they all did by the late '70s and early 1980s.

[Guest]

Seeing as money is entirely fungible, aren't we all paying taxes into a government funded ice breaking system in order to make it easier for profit driven entities to make a buck? I wonder if it wouldn't be better to just hand them the cash.

[Rob]

The Badger isn't designed to be an icebreaker. She's reinforced for working in ice conditions, though.

Private companies wouldn't base icebreakers on the lakes because of their 3 to 4 month usage. Besides, other than tankers, not much else is sailing the lakes between Jan 15 to March 25. The only time additional icebreaking assets are needed is during Spring breakout from mid-March to whenever the ice is no longer a problem for navigation.

But aren't companies then dependent on the government and public money to do a job that essentially subsidizes private income? I was thinking that more shipping could be reinforced for working in ice conditions. I wonder how often the carferries needed the services of icebreakers...

[Darryl]

As regarding Today's Boatnerd News Story of Michigan selling the Blue Water Bridge to possibly the highest bidder who I presume who be a private enterprise - maybe Hedge Fund group of fellows who will charge a for-profit-fee for crossing; maybe that money could go for Ice-Breaking in some capacity. I had to read that Blue Water Bridge story twice. I thought it was April 1st all over again.

[hausen]

I saw in the news today that great lakes shipping companies are calling for more icebreakers. I'm wondering why, in the face of government gridlock and stalling, some private entity doesn't step up and build one.

The purpose of most private enterprises is to channel as much wealth as possible as quickly as possible toward the people who own or control them. Maximizing that flow of wealth means raising prices as high as they can and suppressing all other costs as much as possible. This usually comes at the expense of true operating efficiency, at the expense of the organization's long-term viability, and at the expense of the enterprise's ability to effectively carry out its supposed purpose.

It would be extremely difficult for a private Great Lakes icebreaking operation to be successful in the long run if it tried to cut corners. A private Lakes icebreaking company could either try to be the best icebreaking service it could be, and possibly last a long time as an enterprise, but such an operation would need good, experienced workers, well-maintained equipment, and a very safety-minded company culture. Such an enterprise would not have much if any room for profit to be siphoned away to its owners/shareholders. On the other hand a private Lakes icebreaking company could short its workers, cut corners on safety and equipment, and/or charge its customers excessively high prices in order to siphon a big chunk of its income toward making its owners/shareholders wealthy, but it's easy to see how such an entity wouldn't be able to provide the best icebreaking service available, and you can see that such an entity would not likely last very long. A corner-cutting, profit-maximizing company would probably not last long enough to recoup the costs of building an icebreaker. As long as investment capital is also on the 'maximize wealth for owners/shareholders' mission, it's not likely that anyone is going to sink money into starting up in an especially challenging field with high initial outlay and slim profit margins.

Couldn't there be other ways that a non-governmental entity could organize itself to effectively carry out a challenging mission like Great Lakes icebreaking? Sure. A group of people familiar with the Lakes, experienced in running, supporting, and crewing workboats, and knowledgeable about ice and icebreaking could band together as a worker-owned cooperative and probably be successful as an icebreaking outfit. In a worker-owned, worker-controlled enterprise, there is no owner high at the top or distant shareholders siphoning a bunch of money out of the organization at the expense of everything else. A worker-owned icebreaking company could probably strike the balance of paying themselves well, investing in the safety of their operation and their ship/equipment, and, without any income being siphoned out as profits, they would probably be able to charge reasonable rates and out-compete an icebreaking operation saddled with having to generate profit for owners/shareholders.

Or, you might ask, couldn't Great Lakes shipping companies pool resources and create a customer-owned icebreaking cooperative? It would be another option, sure, but here's the thing: they already contribute money into a pool that pays for icebreakers. They pay taxes, and those taxes fund the Coast Guards. If a group of private, profit-based operations are asking for more funding to be put into tax-funded icebreaking operations, that's pretty telling. It means they think tax-funded icebreaking provides a more satisfactory service than any other options, so much so that they want to expand it.

[Guest]

The Badger isn't designed to be an icebreaker. She's reinforced for working in ice conditions, though.

Private companies wouldn't base icebreakers on the lakes because of their 3 to 4 month usage. Besides, other than tankers, not much else is sailing the lakes between Jan 15 to March 25. The only time additional icebreaking assets are needed is during Spring breakout from mid-March to whenever the ice is no longer a problem for navigation.

[Rob]

I saw in the news today that great lakes shipping companies are calling for more icebreakers. I'm wondering why, in the face of government gridlock and stalling, some private entity doesn't step up and build one. In the past the Mackinac Transportation Company had a couple of excellent icebreakers that served this purpose well. Why wouldn't something like the Badger be a good stopgap measure if her owners were willing to contract for icebreaking? Why are't there already some good icebreakers in the commercial fleets to serve as backup?