ICYMI: Healy Returns to Seattle Following Fire
The damage will likely end the USCG's Arctic patrol. But with the Polar Star in drydock, the USCG may once again find itself with zero icebreakers available. Urgent, concrete action is required.
Healy’s Annual Summer Patrol
Healy is the Coast Guard’s only icebreaker designed specifically to support research and the nation’s sole surface presence routinely operating in the Arctic Ocean.
-U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)
As the USCG states, Healy is the nation’s sole surface presence routinely operating in the Arctic Ocean. Her 2023 patrol was quite notable:
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) and crew returned to its homeport Dec. 15, 2023, after circumnavigating the globe covering 25,000 miles in 159-days in support of the 2024 Arctic science missions.
The Healy and crew made port call stops in Seward and Kodiak, Alaska; Tromsø, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; Reykjavik, Iceland; Charleston, South Carolina; and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Additionally, Healy transited the Panama Canal on its return to Seattle.
On June 12th, 2024, the Healy departed Seattle to start her 2024 summer Arctic patrol. Although the annual patrol is heavily science focused, these annual patrols are important because they show presence in the United States’ mineral-rich Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Extended Continental Shelf (ECS), both of which border Russia. The 2024 patrol was to feature scientific missions followed by a transit of the Northwest Passage, as partially seen in this planning chart:
All seemed to be going well when Healy hosted a National Science Foundation Livestream on July 23rd. However, according to Healy’s actual track, she turned around on July 25th and is now expected back in Seattle on August 14th.
Electrical Fire Shortens Healy’s Patrol
Although no details are available, an explanation came on August 7th, when Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Kevin E. Lunday spoke with Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute. During that conversation Admiral Lunday said:
Coast Guard Cutter Healy, one of our only two U.S. icebreakers, had just begun her summer patrol and was up north of Alaska and the Chukchi Sea, and a few weeks ago had an electrical fire in the engineering spaces. She’s now having to return to homeport to try and effect repairs. Most of the- much of the machinery systems are antiquated and for some there aren’t even parts. We’re going to work as hard as we can to repair it and to try and preserve the rest of the patrol, but that’s in doubt and that’s a concern because if Healy can’t continue that patrol the U.S. will have no surface presence in the Arctic this summer.
It could have been worse. Had the casualty been severe, it would have been difficult to reach Healy and bring her home as Polar Star is in drydock.
It’s like Deja Vu All Over Again
If you’ve been paying attention to the USCG’s polar icebreaking fleet, this sounds familiar. Back on August 18, 2020, a fire onboard Healy resulted in the cancellation of the remainder of her 2020 Arctic patrol:
Current Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Linda Fagan, was then the USCG’s Pacific Area Commander. This is what then Vice Adm. Fagan had to say about it:
I commend the crew of the Healy for their quick actions to safely combat the fire. This casualty, however, means that the United States is limited in icebreaking capability until the Healy can be repaired, and it highlights the nation’s critical need for Polar Security Cutters.
The 2020 fire damaged Healy’s starboard propulsion motor and shaft, requiring a drydock and hull cut to replace the damaged component. Fortunately, the USCG had a spare sitting in a warehouse in Baltimore. Hopefully this year’s damage is light, as I do not expect the USCG to have another spare so readily available.
Not just the Healy:
The USCG’s other polar icebreaker- the older, more capable Polar Star- has had more than its share of mechanical failures recently. These problems include multiple shaft seal failures and associated flooding, fires, electrical faults (including ship-wide power failures while breaking ice), and the failure of an evaporator (an evaporator makes fresh water from sea water).
An article from Business Insider in 2021 discussed some of the challenges in finding parts for the almost fifty-year old ship, which was then, according to her Captain at the time, “just falling apart.” Polar Star’s sister ship, Polar Sea, suffered a major engineering casualty in 2010 and currently serves as a ‘spare parts bin’ for the Polar Star. But even this source of parts is running low.
Because of these challenges, Polar Star is limited to carrying out one mission- supporting the resupply of McMurdo Station, the largest U.S. Research facility in Antarctica. Following this approximately 140-day annual mission, the Polar Star enters drydock for repairs to extend her service life. Polar Star entered service in 1976 and is now well beyond her expected service life of 30 years.
What Has Changed Since 2020?
First, the obvious- the Polar Star and Healy are now older. The former is in drydock right now, for the fourth phase of her five-phase service life extension program (SLEP). Healy’s SLEP is now in the USCG’s budget request and might start quite soon, depending on the damage from this latest fire.
As for the Polar Security Cutter (PSC):
Back in August of 2020, the PSC program was just getting started. VT Halter had been awarded the contract in April of 2019 and there was optimism within the USCG leadership. From the 2020 USCH statement about Healy’s fire:
Construction of the first Polar Security Cutter is scheduled to begin in early 2021 with delivery in 2024.
How’d that turn out?
The 2020 Healy fire did finally convince the USCG that it needed an interim solution. After pushing back against the long-term lease or purchase of a commercial vessel for many years, USCG leadership seemed to settle on purchasing a US-built commercial icebreaking vessel in the months following the 2020 Healy fire.
Here we are in 2024. How much progress have we made? More from Admiral Lunday’s discussion with Michael O’Hanlon:
We need the new Polar Security Cutter that is finishing design maturity, and we hope to begin construction by the end of this calendar year, end of December. The first of three that are under contract right now to be built.
In the meantime, Congress has given us support to acquire a commercially available polar icebreaker. There’s only one in the US that is available, and we have money. We’re beginning the process to purchase that and make it operational as a bridging strategy.
What about the ICE Pact?
Lunday again:
But there’s no question historically from the very beginning when we built the first revenue cutters that US Coast Guard Cutters are built in the United States. And they will be….
Now there are opportunities where we can benefit from the expertise from allies and partners while still building in the US. During the NATO Summit here in DC the White House announced the new Icebreaker collaboration effort PACT or the ICE Pact this is a tripart- tri party agreement between Canada, the US, and Finland to share information, personnel, technology on icebreaker construction. And so that opens the door. There’ll have to be a MOU and we’ll have to define exactly how the agreement will work but it opens the door for bringing expertise from Finland and Canada more into the US sharing of technology. It does not impact our current Polar Security Cutter acquisition but it may help as we move forward and so we’re encouraged by that.
Lundy repeated several of the usual excuses- that U.S. shipyards have a lack of experience building icebreakers, that we have to build up this ability from scratch, and that COVID got in the way.
No one in a position of USCG leadership seems aware that there have been several successful ice-capable ship programs run by our allies and partners during that time interval. (Daewoo/Hanwha and the Arc7 LNG carriers, Vard/Aker and Le Commandant Charcot). Despite articles from the beginning suggesting an error in contract award, USCG leadership has never addressed why they selected a bidder that had zero experience building icebreakers. Notably, one of two losing bidders had significant experience with icebreakers.
It is worth noting here that the Healy herself is based on a Finnish design (the Otso) and that Avondale Shipyard, who built Healy, had significant support from Finnish designers and engineers during design and construction. Alas, this time the US (via VT Halter/Bollinger) is apparently going alone.
Closing Thoughts:
The icebreaker procurement situation is not that much different from where it was in 2020, the last time Healy had a major fire resulting in the cancellation of the USCG’s sole annual Arctic patrol. The PSC is still years away. Although the USCG is now pursuing purchase of a commercially available icebreaker (Aiviq), it is almost four years since the USCG decided to pursue that option. And the vessel has yet to be purchased, let alone modified for usage.
The USCG rhetoric surrounding the ICE Pact seems to limit this arrangement to technology exchanges (although details are still forthcoming). Bollinger appears to not take the ICE Pact seriously, evidenced by its response to the initial announcment:
We need to do something different. The ICE Pact and New Private Sector Investments initiatives have promise, but the initial rhetoric seems long term and one-way.
In other words, from the U.S. perspective American shipbuilders will leverage our allies and partners in order to gain the expertise to make the USA the icebreaking capital of the world, with Bollinger leading the way. Yet, as discussed so far, these initiatives appear to offer no concrete means for the USA to gain, or even maintain, our icebreaking capabilities in the short to medium term.
Davie of Canada intends “to make a significant, long-term commitment to the American shipbuilding industry” according to a July 29th, 2024, press release.
But as of yet, no details have been forthcoming surrounding ICE Pact implementation or Davie’s plan. I’ve been following icebreakers long enough to have seen two failed efforts to work with allies and partners on the matter- the details do matter. And with the recent fire onboard Healy, the requirement for USCG polar icebreakers just became more urgent. Still, the rhetoric from USCG leadership remains the same. Hopefully this will change.
Coming soon, we will revisit the importance of the Antarctic and Arctic presence enabled by USCG polar icebreakers and take a look at what Le Commandant Charcot was up to while I was on summer vacation.
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Until next time.
All the Best,
PGR
i see the USN getting back in the ice breaker business for Polar Security and NOAA picking up polar science with its own fleet.