Coast Guard will buy used icebreaker and base it in Juneau

A commercial icebreaker being purchased by the U.S. Coast Guard will be officially homeported in Juneau, the culmination of a years-long effort to acquire and homeport such a vessel in Alaska waters, officials announced Aug. 14.

The Aiviq, a 360-foot-long U.S.-registered vessel launched in 2012 for offshore oil field work — which has been eyed by Alaska’s congressional delegation for many years since it was pulled out of Arctic waters — is expected to “reach initial operational capability in two years,” according to a press release issued by the Coast Guard.

A $125 million allocation to purchase the vessel was included in the federal budget passed by Congress earlier this year.

Members of Alaska’s congressional delegation say it could result in about 190 Coast Guard personnel assigned to the vessel, accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure and other local investments to support operations, personnel and their families.

It was not immediately known when the Aiviq might reach Juneau’s waters, either for a visit or official deployment.

As part of the homeporting in Juneau, a transfer of 2.4 acres of downtown waterfront property to the Coast Guard from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was completed in February.

The Aug. 14 announcement comes days after the 27-year-old Coast Guard cutter Healy, one of the two operational icebreakers in the U.S. military’s fleet, canceled a planned months-long Arctic deployment due to an electrical fire. The Coast Guard’s other icebreaker, the 50-year-old Polar Star, remains out of commission for its own repairs.

Upgrading the icebreaker fleet has been cited as a top priority by Adm. Linda L. Fagan, the Coast Guard’s commandant, as part of a larger concern about the U.S. military’s strategic readiness in the Arctic, which defense officials have said is lagging behind the efforts of other countries seeking claims to the area, particularly Russia and China.

“Russia has 55 icebreakers and is in the process of building more,” a joint press release issued by Alaska Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski said. “By 2025, China, which has no sovereignty over any Arctic waters, is set to surpass the United States’ icebreaker fleet.”

The U.S. Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter program is seeking to replace three aging vessels with three heavy-duty ships for polar region deployment. But while the original program called for the first such vessel to be completed this year, a multitude of delays means the first new icebreaker may not be ready for service until about 2030.

The Aiviq, while it can function as an icebreaker, won’t have the capabilities the Coast Guard is seeking in its heavy-duty ships, even after planned upgrades during the next two years. The ship was originally built to support Shell’s drilling operations in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, but in 2012 suffered mechanical failure and lost control of an oil rig it was towing, with the rig running aground off Kodiak Island.

The first attempt to purchase the Aiviq for the Coast Guard was made in 2015, but Coast Guard leaders were reluctant for years to acquire the vessel, declaring in one report it was “not suitable for military service without substantial refit.”

But with the ongoing delays to the Polar Security Cutter program, the Coast Guard has endorsed acquiring a private icebreaker — under congressionally approved language that makes the Aiviq the only vessel meeting the specifications. Among the requirements are being built in a U.S. shipyard, able to break at least three feet of ice ahead at a continuous speed of three knots, have 15 years of original design service life remaining, be capable of operations for a minimum of 60 days without resupply, and have a landing area for Coast Guard helicopters.

The ship, which is owned by Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore, most recently worked in the Australian Antarctic program.

 

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